الفهرس 
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Abstract
SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to assess the range of the serum Alanine transaminase (ALT) level in healthy Egyptians and to use this range in evaluating chronic HCV infected patients.
This retrospective study was conducted on 600 adult males, including 300 healthy males who were living donors for liver transplantation (LDLT) in Dar Alfouad Hospital in Cairo, Egypt and Liver transplantation unit of Manial specialized hospital of Cairo university, and 300 male patients with chronic HCV infection candidate for interferon therapy in Viral hepatitis care center and out patient clinics of Cairo university.
All subjects were subjected to complete medical history , physical examination of potential donors, laboratory and imaging investigations as well as liver biopsy, the group of 300 male patients with chronic HCV infection were selected on the basis of being candidates for interferon therapy. According to the presence of latent infection, the healthy LDLT group were classified into healthy LDLT with no latent infection (group I) and healthy LDLT with latent infection (group II). The chronic hepatitis C virus patients were included in our study as group III to assess the level of ALT in hepatitis C virus patients and to be compared with the healthy LDLT group.
For the sake of defining the ULN ALT value, four methods were used to compare their impact:
84 percentile of ALT distribution of donors with low risk for liver disease in group I= 37.
95 percentile of ALT distribution of donors with low risk for liver disease in group I = 44.
Threshold proposed by the manufacturer = 40.
95 percentile after separating subjects with BMI under the median= 45 in group I.
Our results showed significant correlation between both healthy subjects with no latent infection (group I) and chronic hepatitis C patients (group III) when ALT level (above and below 37) was used to compare between them, indicating that ALT level of 37 can differentiate between both groups .
No significant correlation between the base line ALT and the age or BMI of the control group.
There was significant correlation between the base line ALT and the degree of activity but not with the stage of fibrosis.
There was no significant correlation between the base line ALT and latent infection with CMV or EBV.