Table 1.
Results of different studies assessing the effect of alcohol consumption on HCV viral titres
| Author | Method | Viral titres | p Value | |
| Non-drinkers (n) | Heavy drinkers (n) | |||
| Takase13 | PCR | No data | No data | – |
| Sawada21 | bDNA | No data | No data | – |
| Oshita22 | PCR | 7.7 (0.8) (37) | 8.5 (0.5) (16) | <0.01 |
| Cromie23 | PCR | No data | No data | NS |
| Sata24 | bDNA | 15.4 (13.9) (15) | 16.5 (49.4) (20) | NS |
| Ohnishi25 | PCR | 8.0 (1.6) (35) | 7.2 (2.0) (10) | NS |
| Poynard17 | bDNA-2 | 4.7 (7.2) (105) | 8.9 (6.8) (16) | 0.03 |
| Yoshihara26 | PCR | 4.9 (1.6) (33) | 4.4 (1.6) (14) | NS |
| Pessione27 | bDNA-2 | No data | No data | 0.001 |
| Wiley18 | bDNA | 5.9 (10.0) (44) | 5.7 (6.4) (28) | NS |
| Anand28 | bDNA-1 and 2 | 54.4 (66.8) (18) | 78.4 (112.8) (50) | NS |
| Khan29 | bDNA-1 | 2.7 (2.9) (40) | 2.3 (1.7) (24) | NS |
| Loguercio30 | bDNA-2 | 0.6 (0.3) (17) | 14.9 (6.3) (17) | <0.01 |
| Romero-Gomez31 | PCR | No data | No data | NS |
bDNA, branched DNA technique (numbers after bDNA refer to the first or second generation of the test); PCR, polymerase chain reaction assay.
For the purpose of uniformity, all results were converted to mean (SD) (×10) to the sixth power. All p values are as reported by the studies reviewed.