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.