الفهرس 
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Abstract
Our study included 54 subjects in total, 40 of them were chronic HCV patients (naïve) presented to outpatient clinic of Tropical Medicine Department in Assiut University Hospital from September 2020 to june 2021 before treatment and followed after 3 months from the end of treatment,33 showed sustained virological response, 2 non-responders, 5 missed follow up cases. The other 14 subjects were healthy controls. They were divided into 4 groups: group I included 40 chronic HCV-infected patients naïve to treatment (Naïve CHC), group II included 33 patients with sustained viral response (SVR), group III included 2 non-responders, group IV included 14 healthy controls.
The control subjects were attending blood bank of Assiut University Hospital during the study period. They were negative for known serologic markers of hepatitis (B & C) including hepatitis B surface antigen and antibodies to Hepatitis C virus. All patients were subjected to history taking, clinical examination, liver function tests and abdominal ultrasonography.
Blood samples were obtained from patients and controls to measure serum levels of IL-6 and TGF-β by ElISA. Blood samples were centrifuged at 5000 r.p.m. and the supernatant was stored at - 20°c till use. This study showed that the highest level of IL-6 was seen in serum of non-responders (Mean value ± SD ; 142.95 ± 5.44) followed by naïve CHC patients (122.07 ± 36.32) followed by controls (92.58 ± 19.19) and lastly patients with SVR (72.91 ± 14.396), serum IL-6 level was significantly higher in naïve CHC patients vs. controls (P value = 0.009), higher in naïve CHC patients vs. SVR (P value<0.001), higher in non-responder vs. SVR (P value=0.003), higher in non-responder vs. Control (P value=0.017), and higher in control vs. SVR (P value=0.001).and also showed that the highest level of TGF-β was seen in serum of non-responders (Mean value ± SD ; 645.1 ± 39.88) followed by naïve CHC patients (618.58 ± 171.039) followed by controls (519.163± 131.97) and lastly patients with SVR (486.46 ± 131.85) , serum TGF-β level was non-significantly higher in naïve CHC patients vs. controls (P value = 0.058), in non-responder vs. SVR (P value=0.084), in non-responder vs. control (non-responder> Control, P value=0.100) and in control vs. SVR (P value=0.213) but was significantly higher in naïve CHC patients vs. SVR (P value<0.001).