Prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Brazilian liver transplant candidates: negative association with HCV status.

Recently, an epidemiological association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) has been reported in several studies, although many of them did not consider known risk factors in the pathogenesis of type 2 DM. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of type 2 DM among Brazilian HCV (+) and HCV (-) liver transplant candidates, analyzing known confounding factors for the development of type 2 DM. We conducted a cross-sectional study to evaluate the prevalence of type 2 DM among 106 liver transplant adult candidates, comparing 36 HCV (+) cirrhotic patients with 70 HCV (-) patients who developed cirrhosis from other causes. Type 2 DM was diagnosed after two consecutive fasting glucose values > or =126 mg/dL. The age, sex, and race distribution, severity of liver disease (Child-Pugh score), and family history of DM were similar in both groups, but the mean body mass index (BMI) was higher in the HCV (-) subjects (26.81 +/- 5.29 vs 24.0 +/- 4.71, P < .01) Most of the patients were Caucasians (70.75%). Type 2 DM was detected in 36.11% of HCV (+) group and in 25.71% of the HCV (-) (P = .27). A multivariate analysis revealed that family history of DM was the only significant independent predictor for DM (odds ratio = 2.55, 95% CI = 1.03 to 6.31, P = .04). In conclusion, our study did not show an association between HCV infection and Type 2 DM in Brazilian liver transplant candidates. It confirmed that the family history of DM was a determinant factor for the development of type 2 DM.