Estimation of Serum Interleukin-18 and Hs-CRP in Chronic Hepatitis C Infected Patients at Assuit Governorate, Egypt

El-Adly, A. M.; Shalaby, A. A.; Hussein, M. H.; Abo Dahab, N. F.; Abdul-Raouf, U. M.

doi:10.21608/jbaar.2018.150869

Estimation of Serum Interleukin-18 and Hs-CRP in Chronic Hepatitis C Infected Patients at Assuit Governorate, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Botany & Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, 71524 Assiut

² Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, 71524 Assiut

10.21608/jbaar.2018.150869

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a global health problem. Egypt has the highest prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the world. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) as a critical multipotent inducer of innate and acquired immune responses.
This study aimed to estimate IL-18 and hs-CRP levels in patients at different stages of chronic HCV infection and to evaluate IL-18 as a non-invasive marker of the severity of liver damage in chronic hepatitis C patients, and to investigate the characteristics of hs-CRP and its correlation to chronic HCV infection.
This study included 50 chronic HCV patients and 20 healthy. They were subjected to history taking, liver function tests, real-time PCR test and other laboratory tests. Serum IL-18 levels were assayed by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Our study was conducted on 70 subjects with their ages ranging between 9-70 years. 50 HCV chronically infected patients, were 42 (84.0%) males and 8 (16.0%) female. Twenty apparent healthy individuals without HCV infection used as a control, they were 18 (90%) males and 2 (10%) females. Serum IL-18 and Hs-CRP levels were higher in chronic HCV patients compared to healthy. Responders to interferon treatment had higher interleukin-18 levels than non-responders. However, Serum Hs-CRP were higher in non-responders than Responders to interferon treatment. Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma had higher interleukin-18 and Hs-CRP levels than those without hepatocellular carcinoma.
Serum IL-18 could be a significant predictor for the severity of HCV infection and monitoring of therapy response in chronic HCV patients with other tests.

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