Thyroid Disturbance in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Background And Aims: The involvement of thyroid autoimmunity and dysfunction in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection before interferon-α (IFN-α) therapy remains controversial. We performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the association of HCV infection with the presence of anti-thyroid antibodies and dysthyroidism.

Methods: A literature search was carried out to collect articles dated up to August 2015 to identify observational studies which compared the prevalence of anti-thyroid antibodies and thyroid dysfunction in IFN-α naïve chronic HCV-infected subjects with non-HCV infected controls.