الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the cause of many different forms of heart diseases worldwide. Up till now, few cardiologists are aware of (HCV) as an etiology of heart disease and its treatment. HCV infection is seen globally, and is often , undetected therefore , untreated. Egypt has the highest prevalence of HCV in the world, apparently due to previous mass parenteral anti -Schistosomal therapy. The myocardium may be the target of several types of viral infections. In the past decade, the importance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been noted in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, myocarditis and left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction. The role of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events is unclear. HCV infection is recognized to cause chronic immune stimulation, leading to an inflammatory response and cytokine production. Two-dimensional speckle-tracking imaging allows the angle-independent measurement of myocardial strain, and it is able to provide a better characterization of subtle changes in left ventricle function than Left ventricular ejection fraction. Deformation imaging (strain and strain rate) using 2D speckle-tracking (2D-STE) echocardiography has been shown to be more sensitive than LVEF in detecting myocardial contractility. Although the relationship between the presence and severity of hepatitis and/or cirrhosis and LV function has been investigated in various echocardiographic studies, limited number of studies have investigated the regional function of the LV using 2D-STE in cirrhotic patients, mainly alcoholic patients and no studies in chronic hepatitis C patients. This study final conclusion is that virus C is able to affect the systolic function of the left ventricle by using two dimensional speckle tracking echocardiograghy.