Rapidly progressive HCV cirrhosis in a hypogammaglobulinemic patient

Abstract

Contrary to the widely known view of the insidious, slowly progresive pattern of hepatitis C, a rapidly progressive cirrhotic form can devolop in immunodeficient conditions. Hepatitis C leads to cirrhosis in immunocompetent hosts after 20 years of infection however in hypogammaglobulinemic patients disease progresses faster, leading to cirrhosis and death within 10 years of diagnosis and frequently earlier. Here we present a 57-year-old woman with common variable immunodeficiency infected with hepatitis C after antral and duodenal resection and gastrojejenostomy operation in another hospital for lymphoma mimicking duodenal nodular hyperplasia which then rapidly progressed to decompansated cirrhosis in less than two years.