Hepatitis C virus load in parenchyma cells correlates with hepatic injury in infected patients

Abstract

The association between serum hepatitis C virus (HCV) load and hepatic injury in HCV-infected patients has been extensively investigated. The present study aimed to investigate the association between HCV load in hepatic parenchyma cells and hepatic injury in HCV-infected patients. A total of 56 HCV-infected patients were included in the present retrospective study. The serum HCV mRNA was determined using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, while the hepatic parenchyma cell volume and HCV mRNA in hepatic parenchyma cells were also determined. Hepatic injury was evaluated on the basis of the severity of inflammation and fibrosis. The results demonstrated that there were evident differences in the mean serum HCV RNA levels and the HCV load/parenchyma cell volume among the various grades of hepatic inflammation (G1-G4) when groups with the least and most inflammation were compared (G1 vs. G4; P<0.05). Significant differences in the HCV load existed between groups divided according to the fibrosis grade; in addition, differences existed between fibrosis grades S1 and S2, and S2 and S4 when comparing serum HCV RNA levels (P<0.05). Similarly, differences existed between every two fibrosis stages (S0 vs. S4, S2 vs. S3, and S2 vs. S4; P<0.05) when viral loads and parenchyma cell volumes were compared (F=2.860, P<0.05). Furthermore, the fibrosis staging was correlated with the viral load/parenchyma cell volume (F=2.670, P<0.05). In conclusion, hepatic fibrosis grade was found to be associated with HCV load in parenchyma cells. The results of the present study demonstrated that the viral load in parenchyma cells is a more appropriate index compared with the serum viral load for evaluating HCV replication in hepatocytes, and may function as an important factor in HCV-infected hepatic injury evaluation.

Activated Hepatic Stellate Cells (Ito Cells) - Marker of Advanced Fibrosis in Chronic Viral Hepatitis C: A Pilot Study

“…These findings can be explained by the fact that active virus replication activates HSCs, which in turn secret large amounts of collagen, leading to fibrosis. Our findings are in concordance with other researches [51][52][53] conducted on a higher number of VHC patients, showing a significant correlation between serum HCV RNA levels and fibrosis stage and in contrast with others [54][55][56], which did not find any association between these two variables.…”

“…We did not reveal any relationship between blood RNA HCV levels and the necro-inflammatory grade. Some authors also didn't observe any correlation between serum HCV RNA titres and necro-inflammation [51,54,56], while other authors, who conducted a study of 1220 patients with chronic HCV infection, reported a strong association between the viral load and the necro-inflammatory activity (p< 0.001) [55].…”

Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) modifications in patients with chronic hepatitis C

“…The severity of changes we observed does not correlate with patients serum levels of HCV RNA, but appears to be associated to hepatocytes structural lesions and fibrosis stage. It can be hypothesized that the LSECs modifications, in HCV infected liver, could be dependent on the amount of virus into the hepatocytes 33 . Indeed, the crosstalk with the closely juxtaposed hepatocytes is of fundamental importance to preserve the hepatic sinusoidal endothelial cells differentiation.…”