Assessment of carotid atherosclerosis in Egyptian chronic hepatitis C patients after treatment by direct-acting antiviral drugs

Egyptian Liver Journal

Table 9 Concentration of lipid profile and IMT at baseline and 6-month follow-up after initiation of anti-HCV therapy in studied cases categorized according to whether or not they achieved SVR

	Non-SVR (no. = 3)			SVR (no. = 77)			Test value^a	p-value^a
	Mean	± SD	Median	Mean	± SD	Median	Test value^a	p-value^a
TC (mg/dL)
Baseline	180.67	18.45	176.00	175.69	39.70	165.00	1.17	0.243
Follow-up	181.33	18.23	178.00	200.69	39.70	190.00	1.04	0.298
p-value^b	0.655			< 0.001
TGs (mg/dL)
Baseline	129.67	23.59	132.00	126.68	21.26	121.00	0.076	0.939
Follow-up	132.33	30.44	120.00	141.68	21.26	136.00	1.05	0.293
p-value^b	1.00			< 0.001
LDL (mg/dL)
Baseline	103.00	7.00	106.00	100.44	8.43	101.00	0.827	0.402
Follow-up	105.33	5.86	103.00	117.44	8.43	118.00	2.12	0.034
p-value^b	1.00			< 0.001
HDL (mg/dL)
Baseline	48.00	3.61	47.00	48.00	4.28	48.00	0.216	0.829
Follow-up	50.00	9.64	46.00	57.00	4.28	57.00	1.36	0.173
p-value^b	1.00			< 0.001
Carotid IMT
Baseline	1.97	0.20	1.98	1.56	0.74	1.35	1.51	0.132
Follow-up	2.11	0.37	1.92	1.20	0.55	1.06	2.42	0.016
p-value^b	0.285			< 0.001

p ≤ 0.05 is considered statistically significant; p ≤ 0.01 is considered highly statistically significant. ^aMann-Whitney U-test. ^bWilcoxon signed-rank test. SD Standard deviation, TC Total cholesterol, TGs Triglycerides. In non-SVR patients, there was no statistically significant difference in total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, and HDL at baseline and follow-up (p > 0.05), while in SVR group, total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, and HDL were significantly increased after follow-up compared to baseline (p < 0.001). It was noticed that LDL was significantly higher in SVR group compared to non-SVR after treatment (p = 0.034). Also, carotid IMT was significantly lower in SVR group compared to non-SVR (p = 0.016)