Is hepatocyte steatosis a cytopathic effect of hepatitis C virus genotype 3?
We provide virological and clinical evidence that the steatosis of the liver is the morphological expression of a viral cytopathic effect in patients infected with HCV genotype 3. At variance with published evidence from experimental models, the HCV nucleocapsid protein does not seem to fully explain the lipid accumulation in these patients.
Our results show that the COMT Val158Met polymorphism contributes to variability in pain sensitivity after cardiac surgery of morphine-treated patients in the intensive care unit, because Met-allele carriers were more sensitive to overall pain and procedure-related pain.