Clinical relevance of urinary transforming growth factor-B1 in chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma

ABSTRACT

Transforming growth factor-beta-1 [TGF-beta-1] exerts a broad spectrum of biologic activities through both autocrine and paracrine pathways. It is supposed to be the mediator of fibrosis in liver cirrhosis. It also strongly promotes local tumor progression. The aim of the present study was to assess the clinical relevance of urinary TGF- beta-1 in chronic liver disease [CLD] and hepatocellulary carcinoma [HCC]. The study also tried to evaluate the clinical utility of TGF-beta-1 in detecting HCC. The study was conducted on 40 patients with CLD [20 patients with chronic active hepatitis [CAH] and 20 patients with cirrhosis], 40 patients with HCC and 40 age and sex matched healthy controls. In conclusion, this study showed that urinary TGF-beta-1 is a good indicator of the severity of liver disease and has a prognostic value in patients with cirrhosis. Furthermore, elevated urinary TGF-beta-1 level can be considered as a novel tumor marker for HCC. Parallel assay of TGF- beta-1 and AFP provide significant improvement in the detection of HCC, particularly in cases with low AFP production