Patients with persistence of autoantibodies (ANA and/or ASMA and/or AMA) did not show clinically overt autoimmune diseases at the latest follow-up (at least 35 months after sustained virological response), excluding two patients with previously known primary biliary cholangitis overlapping HCV infection and a female patient with anti-centromere autoantibodies suspected of having a concurrent early limited variant of systemic sclerosis. The gene discussed is BTG3; the disease is systemic sclerosis.