1.Assessment of interleukin 17 and transforming growth factor-beta 1 in hepatitis C patients with disease progression
Elbanan, W.K. ; Fathy, S.A. ; Ibrahim, R.A. ; Hegazy, M.G.A.
Tropical Biomedicine 2020;37(No.4):1093-1104
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in Egypt is the most serious health problem.
Identifying HCV-positive persons at high risk of early complications can help prioritize treatment
decisions. Recently, attention has been directed to non-invasive, accurate alternatives using
serum biochemical markers. The transforming growth factor β 1/interleukins pathway plays
an important role in the process of cell injury and inflammation. Thus, TGF-β1 and IL-17 were
assessed in serum of chronic HCV patients with correlation to hepatic inflammatory and
fibrotic status. The quantitative serum levels of TGF-β1 and IL-17 were analyzed among
chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients (n=75) and normal control (NC) subjects (n=15). Disease
severity in patients was assessed using the Child-Pugh scores and METAVIR. Serum levels of
TGF-β1 and IL-17 were significantly increased in HCV patients compared to control group.
Furthermore, the levels of TGF-β1 and Il-17 were positively correlated to serum transaminases
and alpha-fetoprotein and they were negatively correlated with serum albumin and platelets.
Additionally, the serum levels of TGF-β1 and Il-17 were associated with inflammation grades
and stages of liver fibrosis. TGF-β1 and IL-17 may be hopeful serum biomarkers concerned in
the progression of liver inflammation and fibrosis accompanying chronic HCV infection.
Therefore, they could be used in the future as targets for anti-fibrotic therapy of chronic HCV
to ameliorate the disease progress.