[Hepatitis C and chronic alcoholic hepatopathy]

We evaluated hepatitis C virus prevalence in 105 patients with chronic alcoholic liver disease by research of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) by second generation recombinant based enzyme immunosorbent to assay and immunoblot to assay. 46 patients of 105 (43.7%) were anti-HCV positive: 2 in steatosis group (9.5%), 3 in steatofibrosis (23%), 10 in chronic active hepatitis (66.6%), 22 in cirrhosis (59.4%) and 9 in hepatocellular carcinoma (47.3%). These patients had higher levels of serum gammaglobulin and transaminases than seronegative patients. We think that there is a correlation between high prevalence of antibodies anti-HCV and the evolution of damage in chronic alcoholic liver disease.