الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Hepatitis C virus infection is a major global health problem, because it affects chronic injury of the liver in a high percentage of acutely infected patients. The persistence of inflammatory responses and cellular damage promote disease progression toward fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, accurate evaluation of hepatic fibrosis has become the primary goal in managing the progression of CHC, because its morbidity and mortality are linked to fibrosis and its complications. The aim of our study was to assess the diagnostics values of angiogenic soluble biomarkers and chemical elements in CHC patients in different stages of fibrosis, correlate the collected data with disease severity and discriminating significant fibrosis patients. The patients and the controls were tested for liver function tests, platelets counts, and INR. Also, agniogenic markers as Human basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), Human endostatin (ENDO), Human angiopoitin II (ANG-2) were evaluated by ELISA in both patients and healthy control. Chemical elements biomarkers including Zinc (Zn), phosophorus (P), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), and calcium (Ca), were evaluated by colorimetric method. In conclusion, our findings showed that, angiogenesis biomarkers and chemical elements are crucial markers in liver fibrosis assessment. Moreover, the newly developed scores; Angio-Index, consisting of (ANG-2, bFGF, HGF, and ENDO), and Element-Index, consisting of (Zn, Fe, P and Cu) are an accurate tests for liver fibrosis staging. It is evident that the Angio-Index and Element-Index are mediated in fibrosis process, which can be applied as biomarkers for the detection of liver fibrosis progress. Furthermore, our study utilizing combined scores (angiogenic biomarkers or chemical elements based scores) may add more to the reduction of liver biopsy and may be valuable in diagnosis of liver fibrosis in the future. |