Purpose: The hepatitis C-Auto-immune hepatitis overlap syndrome is an uncommon condition whose management can be difficult in both diagnosis and treatment.
Patients et méthodes: 62 old years women, without particular history Hepatitis C was proven by a positive HCV viral load and the autoimmune hepatitis was proven by characteristic immunological and/or histological features.Liver function tests was prescribed. Search for hepatitis B and C viral markers was performed by chimiluminescence, the viral load of the virus VHC was performed by molecular biology. The nuclear anti body were detected by indirect immunofluorescence on hep cells 20-10.Solubles antigens was performed by dot blot
Résults: Laboratory studies showed a lever transaminase ALAT at 220 UI /l, ASAT at 231 UI /l, hypergammaglobulineamia at 30g/l, HVC seropositive, high viral load at 6.19 106 UI/ml. The nuclear antibody showed cytoplasmic fluorescence, Anti DNA were negative, liver biobsy showed lymphocytic infiltrates and steatosis
Conclusion: This case illustrates diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties of hepatitis C–AIH overlap syndromes, this study highlights the deciding contribution of the initial histological findings in the diagnosis of such a HCV/autoimmune hepatitis overlap syndrome.