Study of intercellular adhesion molecule-I in patients with liver cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis: association with disease severity and activity

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out in Benha University hospital on 20 patients with liver cirrhosis [Group I], 25 patients with chronic hepatitis [Group II] and 20 healthy controls. Thorough history and clinical examination was done to all subjects. Abdominal ultrasonography and the following laboratory investigations were performed to every subject AST, ALT, serum albumin, serum bilirubin, Prothrombin time [PT], HCV Ab, HBs Ag, HBc Ab [IgG]. HBe Ab and serum level of intercellular adhesion molecule- 1 "sICAM- 1". Liver biopsy was done to patients only. Assessment of disease severity was judged by Child-Pugh classification. Assessment of disease activity was done by histopathological staging and by ALT and AST levels. Our work showed that serum level of sICAM- 1 was significantly high in both patient groups compared to controls, and this elevation was attributed to both increased hepatic production and defective hepatic clearance. The serum level of sICAM-1 correlated significantly with both disease severity and activity. Our study showed that serum level of sICAM-1 can be used as a screening non-invasive test with high specificity [100%] and sensitivity [94.6%] to detect patients with chronic liver diseases. On the other hand we failed to find a significant difference in the serum level of sICAM-1 between the two patient groups. Therefore, serum level of sICAM-1 has a poor diagnostic value with low specificity [78.6%] and sensitivity [43.5%] to differentiate patients with chronic hepatitis from patients with cirrhosis