[A study of the progression of cirrhosis in patients with human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus coinfection].

OBJECTIVES: To study the progression of cirrhosis in patients with HIV/HCV coinfection. METHODS: The patients were divided into two groups, HIV/HCV coinfection group (n = 140) and simple HCV infection group (n = 33). A retrospective study was designed to compare the development of cirrhosis in a 15-year period between the two groups. RESULTS: The development of cirrhosis in the HIV/HCV coinfection group was higher than that in the simple HCV infection group (16.4% vs. 3.0%, P=0.045). Counts of CD4+ T and CD8+ T in the HIV/HCV group were 200.0+/-134.1 cells/microl and 880.6+/-444.2 cells/microl, respectively. The counts of CD4+ T and CD8+ T in the group of simple HCV infection were 752.3+/-251.7 cells/microl and 529.0+/-170.7 cells/microl, respectively. There were significant differences between the two groups regarding the counts of CD4+ T and CD8+ T. Comparing the cases of HCV RNA (+) and anti-HCV (+) with the cases of HCV RNA (+) and anti-HCV (-), we found that the ratio was 89 to 15 in the group of HIV/HCV coinfection, and 25 to 0 in the group of simple HCV infection. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P = 0.043). CONCLUSION: HIV/HCV coinfection can accelerate the progression of cirrhosis, which may be due to the effect of HIV on cellular immunity and humoral immunity.