Prevalence of thyroid stimulating hormone dysfunction among sofosbuvir-treated HCV-infected patients: A real-world clinical experience.

Thyroid dysfunctions occur frequently among hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients. Accumulating evidence has shown the higher incidence of thyroid dysfunctions in interferon-treated patients that was previously the standard of care therapy. However, the prevalence of thyroid disorders has not been studied in the recently developed interferon-free regimens or direct-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs-treated patients. We recruited 37 patients who had just completed 6 months long sofosbuvir-based treatment, and 26 interferon-treated patients were also included in the study. Serum thyrotropin level of all participants was measured using VIDAS. We observed thyroid dysfunctions in both pegylated interferon-experienced and DAA drug-experienced patients but the prevalence of hyperthyroidism was found significantly higher in patients treated with interferon-based regimen as compared with interferon-free regimens. This high prevalence of hypothyroidism in patients with HCV posttreatment highlights the need for regular periodic screening of patients during the treatment.

Evaluation of ADAM33 gene's single nucleotide polymorphism variants against asthma and the unique pattern of inheritance in Northern and Central Punjab, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship of 3 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variants of ADAM33 with asthma susceptibility in patients from Northern and Central Punjab, Punjab, Pakistan. Methods: In this case-control study, healthy and asthmatic participants were recruited between 2015 and 2017. The SNPs of ADAM33 gene, rs2280089, rs2280090, and rs2280091 were analyzed in 296 asthma patients and 343 healthy controls, as well as linkage disequilibrium and haplotype analysis. RESULTS: The non-significant differences were observed in allele and genotype frequencies of the SNPs in asthmatic and healthy persons even after population stratification based on age, caste, gender, family history, and environment. Although these SNPs were non-significant for disease susceptibility among children and adults, a fixed unique pattern of inheritance was nevertheless observed for the studied SNPs. Linkage disequilibrium analysis presented a very strong linkage between the SNP variants to predict their co-inheritance in study population. However, none of the haplotypes were found to be associated with asthma disease development. CONCLUSION: The studied SNPs of ADAM33 appeared to be non-significant for asthma susceptibility in  Northern and Central Punjabi population. The fixed allele combination inheritance pattern was a unique observation contrary to findings in other global populations.