Risk of microangiopathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with or without chronic hepatitis C: Results of a retrospective long-term controlled cohort study

Background: Patients with chronic hepatitis C have an increased risk of diabetes mellitus but the type and risk of developing diabetes-related complications have not yet been evaluated. Methods: In order to compare the incidence of diabetic microangiopathy in patients with new onset diabetes without microangiopathy we recruited 54 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive and 119 HCV-negative patients from January 2005 to December 2006. All patients were followed-up every 6 months for liver and diabetic complications and incidence of cardiovascular diseases up to December 2012 when data were retrospectively analyzed. Results: The two cohorts were comparable at enrolment except for mean body mass index, obesity rate and family history of diabetes (p= 0.007). After 7.2 years of follow-up, 13 HCV-positive (24.1%) and 37 HCV-negative patients (31%) showed at least one microangiopathic complication (p= 0.34); 5 HCV-positive (9.3%) and 13 HCV-negative patients (10.8%) reported cardiovascular diseases (p= 0.2); 14 HCV-positive (24.5%) compared to 0 HCV-negative patients developed liver-related complications (p= 0.0003). One HCV-positive patient died due to liver cancer, 1 HCV-negative patient died from myocardial infarction (p= 0.3). Increasing age (HR. = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.00-1.07, p= 0.04) and smoking (HR. = 2.94, 95% CI: 1.06-8.17, p= 0.04) were positively associated to diabetic complications. Conclusions: Incidence of microangiopathy is not significantly different in diabetics with or without chronic hepatitis C.