Hepatitis c associated glomerulonephritis is an immune complex disease that occurs in 21% of patients who have HCV infection.

Hepatitis C virus infection is a major public health problem with an estimated global prevalence of 3% and an estimated 5-20% of infected patients will develop liver cirrhosis .The Prevalence of Hepatitis C infection in end stage renal disease is greater than in the general population especially in those on hemodialysis which reflects nosocomial transmission of the disease in the hemodialysis environment.

Hepatitis C associated glomerulonephritis is an immune complex disease that occurs in 21% of patients who have HCV infection. It most commonly presents as membranoproliferative and mixed cryoglobulinemia It characterized by an indolent course in one third of patients , remission in another third and relapsing course in the remaining patients with potential progression to advanced chronic kidney disease.

mechanism of injury : Chronic Hepatitis C is primarily associated with type II cryoglobulinemia , in which the primary mechanism of injury is vasculitis that occurs via immune complex deposition.

hepatitis C virus related glomerular disease :

Type I membranoproliferative was the most common finding associated with mixed cryoglobulinemia but other forms of glomerulonephritis were associated with Hepatitis c like mesangial glomerulonephritis,focal and segmental glomerulonephritis,minimal change nephropathy,membranous nephropathy , Fibrillary glomerulonephritis,immunotactoid glomerulopathy,IgA nephropathy, vasculitic renal involvement ,poly arteritis nodosa and interstitial nephritis .

Inclusion Criteria:

• it will be conducted on chronic hepatitis C patients with chronic kidney disease .
• The participants will be classified according to their estimated GFR by modified MDRD equation and
• they will be recruited from the renal unit of internal medicine, Assiut University Hospitals and assiut hepatitis viruses unit-ministry of health, Egypt.

Exclusion Criteria:

Patients will be excluded if the underlying causes of CRF are as follows:

chronic pyelonephritis,obstructive uropathy,Polycystic kidney disease,Patients with ESRD on regular hemodialysis,patients with advanced liver cirrhosis,hepatocellular carcinoma,Patients on steroids or immunosuppressive drugs and Solitary kidney.

prospective observational study