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. 2022 Aug 10;15(5):1027. doi: 10.1007/s12328-022-01685-7

Reply to the Letter to Editor regarding “Autoimmune hepatitis with history of HCV treatment triggered by COVID‑19 vaccination: case report and literature review”

Naoyuki Hasegawa 1,✉, Ryota Matsuoka 2, Naoki Ishikawa 1, Masato Endo 1, Masahiko Terasaki 1, Emiko Seo 1, Kiichiro Tsuchiya 1
PMCID: PMC9364281  PMID: 35947250

We thank the authors for their important comments regarding recent our case report entitled “Autoimmune hepatitis with history of HCV treatment triggered by COVID‑19 vaccination: case report and literature review” [1]. In our case report, we suggested that history of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was one of the risk factors of autoimmune hepatitis triggered by Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) vaccination. Of course, our experience is only one case report, and we do not intend to deny COVID-19 vaccination to people with HCV infection. However, it is well known that autoimmune diseases are closely related to vaccine and infection diseases, including COVID-19 vaccination [2] and HCV infection [3]. Srikrishna V. Malayala et al. reported the patient of thrombocytopenia following COVID-19 vaccination with HCV infection [4]. Although COVID-19 vaccination is beneficial for the great majority of people, our case report suggests that physicians should pay attention to its adverse effect, such as autoimmune disease, especially in people with HCV infection.

In the near feature, as Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip et al. mentioned, to obtain more conclusive evidence on this topic, we have to gather pre-vaccination status and immunological health information on a national scale.

Funding

None.

Declarations

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical statement

The authors declare that this study conformed to the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from the patient for being included in this study.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

References

  • 1.Hasegawa N, Matsuoka R, Ishikawa N, et al. Autoimmune hepatitis with history of HCV treatment triggered by COVID-19 vaccination: case report and literature review. Clin J Gastroenterol. 2022 doi: 10.1007/s12328-022-01654-0. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Chen Y, Zhiwei Xu, Wang P, et al. New-onset autoimmune phenomena post-COVID-19 vaccination. Immunology. 2022;165:386–401. doi: 10.1111/imm.13443. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3.Jadali Z, Alavian S-M. Autoimmune diseases co-existing with Hepatitis C virus infection. Iran J Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2010;4:191–206. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 4.Malayala SV, Mohan G, Vasireddy D, et al. Purpuric Rash and Thrombocytopenia After the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) COVID-19 Vaccine. Cureus. 2021 doi: 10.7759/cureus.14099. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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