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Several research groups have reported a high incidence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in patients with autoimmune hepatitis. This finding could indicate a relation between HCV and autoimmune hepatitis, or might simply result from false-positive anti-HCV assays. These researchers performed hepatitis C testing in two groups: 26 patients with chronic active autoimmune hepatitis who had antinuclear and smooth-muscle antibodies and 52 patients with chronic non-A, non-B hepatitis who lacked these autoantibodies.
Anti-HCV antibodies were detected in 71 percent to 94 percent of the patients with non-A, non-B hepatitis, depending on which of five different assays was used. These results were almost certainly true positives, since a confirma…