Hostility is Associated with Interferon γ Inducible Protein 10 in Opioid Maintenance Treatment Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C.

OBJECTIVE

Levels of circulating cytokines has been shown to be related to psychological distress. We have earlier shown that the symptoms of hostility may be related to levels of interferon γ inducible protein 10 (IP-10) in a group of general psychiatric in-patients receiving psychotropic medication. Here we investigate this association in a group of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with or without opioid maintenance treatment (OMT).

METHODS

In a cross-sectional study, out-patients were interviewed for psychological distress using the Symptoms Check-List-90-R (SCL-90-R) and blood samples were drawn to measure serum levels of IP-10. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to investigate the association between hostility and IP-10 hostility in the whole group, and in the non-OMT and the OMT-patients, respectively.

RESULTS

One hundred and twenty patients with chronic HCV infection were included, of whom 53 received OMT. There was no association between hostility and IP-10 in the patient group as a whole. In the OMT group we observed a negative association throughout the steps including adjusting for age, gender and BMI (β = -0.48, p = 0.011).

CONCLUSION

We observed that only in OMT patients was there a negative association between hostility and IP-10. This might support previous findings that drugs, self-reported mental health symptoms and cytokines interact.