RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization has declared hepatitis C a global health problem, with approximately 3% of the world's population (roughly 170-200 million people) infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). In Egypt, Chronic hepatitis C is the main cause of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Liver biopsy is currently the gold standard method for ascertaining the presence of cirrhosis, and scoring the severity of necroinflammation and fibrosis, but it is invasive, expensive and associated with rare but serious complications. There has been increasing interest in noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis by the use of surrogate serum markers; one of them is interleukin-18 (IL-18). OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was the estimation of the levels of interleukin-18 in chronic hepatitis C patients and comparing between IL-18 levels and results of liver biopsy, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. MATERIAL AND METHODS: It included fifty chronic viral hepatitis C patients who were subjected to liver biopsy as well as fifty healthy blood donors as a control group. Sera were tested for estimation of ALT and AST levels and were subjected to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for determination of IL-18 levels. RESULTS: The mean level of IL-18 was significantly higher in chronic hepatitis C patients (347.22pg/ml) compared to the controls (209.61pg/ml), and there was significant relation between levels of IL-18 and the stage of liver fibrosis. CONCLUSION: IL-18 could be used as an additional non invasive marker for monitoring the degree of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C patients.
