Novel Laboratory Tests in Assessment of Liver Function in Acute and Chronic Liver Diseases

Abstract

Novel Laboratory Tests in Assessment of Liver Function in Acute and Chronic Liver Diseases Liver biopsy in clinical practice has been widely used for the diagnosis and management of patients with liver diseases, particularly, with chronic liver diseases. However, liver biopsy is an invasive method with potential complications, sampling and interpretation errors. Therefore, noninvasive tests are being developed and introduced to replace liver biopsy. The aim of the present study was to identify the new noninvasive methods to be used for the assessment of liver structure and function, by use of the appropriate serum surrogate markers and to evaluate the clinical diagnostic and prognostic accuracy of these methods, including immunogenetic methods, in cases of acute and chronic liver diseases. The obtained data showed that serum markers of apoptosis (cytokeratin-18 neoepitope and citochrome c) and fibrosis (hyaluronic acid) should be included in viral and toxic liver damage management algorithms. The punctual identification of immunogenetic factors (HLA class II antigens) may prove to be useful in predicting disease evolution, and in guiding the appropriate therapy for patients with poor prognosis.

The Level of Cytokeratin 18 in Patients with HIV and Viral Hepatitis C Co-Infection in Latvia

“…Cytokeratin 18 (CK18) is a specific indicator of hepatocyte apoptosis as it is mostly expressed by hepatocytes (Chu and Weiss, 2002). CK18 is elevated in patients with various liver diseases: acute and chronic viral hepatitis (Vîksna et al, 2009;Parfieniuk-Kowerda et al, 2014), patients with acute alcoholic hepatitis (Vîksna et al, 2009) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (Feldstein et al, 2009;Aida et al, 2014;Kobayashi et al, 2017). An increased CK18 level in blood was observed in patients with HIV mono-infection because of development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis caused by longtime ART, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance (Benmassaoud et al, 2018).…”