الفهرس 
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Abstract
HCC is one of the most dangerous complications of liver cirrhosis. The incidence of HCC in patients with HCV cirrhosis is high. Therefore, evaluation of biomarkers that predict early stages of HCC in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) induced hepatic cirrhosis is of great clinical importance from the diagnostic and prognostic points of view.
AFP has been used as a marker for HCC, despite its low sensitivity and positive predictive value. Moreover, it has been stated that up to 30% of HCC patients have normal α-fetoprotein levels. Therefore, novel biomarkers are still needed to be used for early detection of cases with HCC.
Serum ß2-MG can be a useful serum marker for HCC. Serum ß2-MG was found to be highly expressed in many malignancies and the expression level of serum ß2-MG in tumor tissues or in blood of cancer patients has been positively correlated with tumor grade, tumor stage and early recurrence in many cancer types.
The present study was held to study the changes in serum ß2-MG in HCV induced liver cirrhosis and HCC and to evaluate its role as a potential novel biomarker of HCC in comparison to AFP.
The study was conducted on 90 subjects in Alexandria Main University Hospital, Tropical Medicine Department, the subjects were divided into three groups. The first two groups consisted of 40 patients each. group I contained patients with HCV induced liver cirrhosis without HCC while group II contained patients with HCV induced HCC. group III consisted of 10 healthy controls.
Patients were excluded from the study if they had any of the following conditions: any form of chronic infection, any autoimmune disorder , any other malignancies (solid or humoral), acute or chronic kidney disease, hepato-renal syndrome, I.V. drug users, patients receiving any form of immune-modulating drugs, organ transplant recipient, patients who received any form of treatment for HCC,
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Summary
female subjects who are pregnant or nursing an infant ,current or past history of heavy alcohol consumption, other liver diseases as alcoholic liver disease, non alcoholic fatty liver disease, drug-induced hepatitis and other viral hepatitis.
All patients and controls were subjected to the following:
1) Detailed history and thorough clinical examination.
2) Laboratory investigations including
a) Routine investigations:
1- Complete blood picture.
2- Blood urea and serum creatinine.
3- Fasting blood glucose level
b) Liver function tests and liver enzymes including serum alanine transaminase (ALT), serum aspartate transaminase (AST), serum albumin, serum bilirubin, prothrombin time and INR.
3) HCV Ab by ELISA, HCV RNA by PCR, anti HBcore Ab and HBsAg by ELISA.
4) Estimation of serum αfetoprotein.
5) Measurement of Serum ß2-MG by immunoassay.
6) Abdominal ultrasonographic and Triphasic CT liver for HCC patients.