Detection of hepatitis C virus genomic sequences in the cerebrospinal fluid of HIV-infected patients.

To assess the presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the central nervous system (CNS), HCV-RNA was sought in paired serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of 21 HIV/HCV-positive patients: HCV-RNA was detected in the serum of 19/21 patients (90.4%), and in the CSF of five of the 19 serum-positive patients. The presence of HCV-RNA was confirmed in follow-up CSF samples available for three of these five patients. An identical HCV genotype was found in the paired serum/CSF samples. No correlation was found between the different genotypes and the presence of HCV in CSF of the individual patients. HCV viremia levels measured by branched-DNA and quantitative PCR were not significantly higher in the CSF-positive cases than in the CSF-negative cases (P = 0.3, using b-DNA; 0.5, using quantitative PCR). This report shows the presence of HCV in CSF and raises the possibility that the CNS may act as a reservoir site for HCV.