Biomedical Research

Background/Aims: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infections cause chronic infection, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, we aimed to demonstrate that the Serum Prolidase Activity (SPA) is one of the indicators of chronic hepatitis B related liver fibrosis.

Materials and Methods: Diagnosis of prolonged hepatitis B (CHB) was determined with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity for more than 6 months. All CHB cases were followed up with liver enzymes (ALT, SAT, GGT, bilirubin), HBV DNA and sonography at least once a year. Patients, who were pregnant, or taking sclerosing treatment or cancer treatment and treatment of diabetes were excluded from the study. The control group was designated randomly from individuals’ not caring hepatitis B surface antigen. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. A p value was <0.05 was used meaningful.

Results: A total 30 patients CHB (the average age 38.53 ± 8.99; 19 female/11 male) and 30 healthy controls (the average age 35.80 ± 9.31; 14 female/16 male) were included in the study. While ALT (38.1 versus 23.3 U/L), ALP (71.4 versus 48.7 U/L), PLT (213.2 versus 269.2 unit/ml) and SPA levels (1263.8 versus 784.6 U/L) were found expressively diverse in the study group than in control group (p=0.049, p=0.0001, p=0,037 and p=0.0001, respectively).

Conclusions: SPA activity is considerably increased in CHB patients having liver damage. So, we think that SPA can be candidate as a non-invasive biomarker for liver fibrosis.

Author(s): Suleyman Kaleli, Oguz Karabay, Ertugrul Guclu, Meltem Karabay
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