Global Journal of Digestive Diseases

Correlation between liver stiffness estimated by acoustic radiation force impulse and Serum soluble CD163 in chronic hepatitis C patients

Background and Aims: Soluble CD163 is a marker for macrophage activation. Developing non-invasive tests that can accurately predict initial disease stage and progression over time represents a high priority and growing medical need. The aim of current work is to study hepatic stiffness using ARFI, then to correlate the degree of stiffness with the level of soluble CD 163 in CHC patients.                                                                                              

Method: The study population included a total of 72 subjects of which 52 patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. Twenty healthy subjects were included as a control. Liver fibrosis was assessed by Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging and measured in m/s. sCD163 levels were performed using commercially-available standard sandwich ELISAkit.                                                                                                                      

Result: The serum sCD163 levels ranged between 13.50 – 85.0 u/ml in patients with CHC and 6.0 – 13.0 u/ml in healthy subjects. The mean serum sCD163 levels showed significant increases in patients with CHC compared with healthy subjects (22.87 ± 10.46u/ml and 9.10 ± 1.84 u/ml respectively, P < 0.001. The mean serum sCD163 was higher in patients with cirrhosis (F4) than patients with absent/mild fibrosis (F0-F1) and patients with significant fibrosis(F2-F3).                                                                            Conclusion: This study suggest that sCD163 is promising noninvasive marker of macrophage activation in chronic hepatitis C patients.   

Author(s):

Mariam Mohammed

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