Author(s)

Vatsalya Vatsalya^1,2*, Shirish S. Barve^1,3, Craig J. McClain^1,3,4, Vijay A. Ramchandani²

¹Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, USA.
²Section on Human Psychopharmacology, LCTS/DICBR/NIAAA at National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA.
³Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, USA.
⁴Robley Rex VA Medical Center, Louisville, USA.

HIV and HCV co-infection is a unique disease condition, and medical management of such condition is difficult due to severity and systemic complications. Added with heavy alcohol drinking, risk of liver injury increases due to several pro-inflammatory responses that subsequently get involved with alcohol metabolism. Elevated levels of fatty acids have been reported both in viral infections as well as alcoholic liver disease though such investigations have not addressed the adverse event with dual viral infection of HIV and HCV along with heavy drinking. This case report of a patient with excessive alcohol drinking and first time diagnosis of HIV and HCV dual infection, elaborating concurrent alteration in Linoleic Acid (LA) levels and pro-inflammatory shift in ω-6/ω-3 ratio along with the elevations in liver injury markers. Elevated LA has been recently studied extensively for its role in alcoholic liver disease; and in the present case, we also found it to be clinically relevant to liver injury.

Alcohol, Fatty Acids, HCV, HIV, Liver Injury

Vatsalya, V. , Barve, S. , McClain, C. and Ramchandani, V. (2016) Elevated Linoleic Acid (A Pro-Inflammatory PUFA) and Liver Injury in a Treatment Naive HIV-HCV Co-Infected Alcohol Dependent Patient. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 4, 23-27. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2016.47003.