Background: Various cytokine dynamics has been associated with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We hypothesized that cytokines have an important role in fibrosis development in HCV infection. Methods: All patients received liver biopsies to validate the severity of chronic hepatitis when enrolled in this study. Fluorescent Bead immunoassay was used to measure the following serum cytokine levels: Interferon γ, tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-12. Various statistical analyses were used as appropriate. Results: From all the liver biopsy proven 92 HCV-infected patients, 49 (53.3%) were male, 23 (25%) patients had advanced (fibrosis grades 3-4) fibrosis, and the mean age of the study population was 51.9 ± 9.4 years. Elevation of baseline IL-4 level (>490 pg/mL) was associated with liver fibrosis grade by X2 test (odds ratio [OR] = 2.99; 95%, CI = 1.02-8.78; p = 0.042) and multivariate logistic regression (OR = 4.26; 95% CI = 1.13-16.02; p = 0.032). Also, IL-4 had strong diagnostic value in advanced liver fibrosis by using area under receiver operating characteristics curve analysis. Assessment of fibrosis score was consequently developed from our findings and compared with other noninvasive serum markers to assess liver fibrosis. Conclusion This study provides evidence that increased IL-4 expression predicted advanced liver fibrosis in treatment of HCV-infected patients.

Introduction: In 2018, a total of 901 new cases of gastric cancer were recorded, of which 64.8% in males and 34.2% in females. The incidence rate of gastric cancer was 28.5 per 100 000 population, which 38.2 for males and 19.2 for females. Goal: We aimed to investigate the associations between some risk factors and gastric cancer among the Mongolian population. Materials and Methods: A case-control study was conducted between November 2017 and September 2019. We selected 120 cases from National cancer center of Mongolia who newly diagnosed gastric cancer. And 120 controls were selected by matching by sex, age and the place of residence. Informed consents were obtained from all subjects. All subjects were personally interviewed with researchers used by a structured questionnaire consisting of 86 questions. The SPSS 21 (version 16.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) software was used for all analyses. Results: The mean age was 59.2±11.4 (26-85) years. Habits of having dinner after 6.00 pm (OR 1.42, 95%CI 1.11-1.83, p=0.008), having leftover meals (OR 2.22, 95%CI 1.27-3.86, p=0.008), daily consumption of tea with salt (OR 1.97, 95%CI 1.18-3.30, p=0.01), smoking on an empty stomach (OR 2.44, 95%CI 1.11-5.37, p=0.033), weekly consumption of ham and smoked meat (OR 1.5, 95%CI 1.17- 2.13, p=0.02), and consumption of fat grease (OR 2.09, 95%CI .03-4.24, p=0.038) were significantly increased gastric cancer risk. In contrast, habit of eating at regular times (OR 0.43, 95%CI 0.25-0.73, p=0.002), chewing thoroughly (OR 0.39, 95%CI 0.23-0.67, p=0.001), cooking meat thoroughly until it’s tender (OR 0.48, 95%CI 0.25-0.97, p=0.047), daily consumption of vegetables (OR 0.45, 95%CI 0.27-0.76, p=0.003), and daily consumption of fruit juice (OR 0.36, 95%CI 0.15-0.85, p=0.026) were significantly reduced gastric cancer risk. Furthermore, having first-degree relatives diagnosed with gastric cancer had 2-3 fold higher increased risk of gastric cancer (parents OR 2.88, 95%CI 1.07- 7.78, p=0.038, sibling (OR 3.09, 95%CI 1.09-8.81, p=0.036). Also, previous records of the digestive disease increased risk of gastric cancer (OR 3.65, 95%CI 2.10-6.35, p<0.0001). Conclusion Dietary habits, family history of gastric cancer and previous records of digestive disease were associated with risk of gastric cancer. Thus, prevention effort could be focused on the population with a family history of gastric cancer, changing bad dietary habit and screening precancerous disease of gastric cancer.