Significance of growth differentiation factor 15 in chronic HCV patients

Background and objective: Hepatitis C virus is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in Egypt. This work aims to assess the use of the simple and noninvasive biomarker Serum Growth differentiation Factor 15 (GDF-15), along with Alpha Fetoprotein (AFP) and Ferritin for the diagnosis of advanced liver disease in chronic hepatitis C patients. Subjects and methods: This study was conducted on 60 patients, who were recruited from the National Liver and Tropical Diseases Institute, Cairo, Egypt, who were suffering from early & advanced liver cirrhosis and chronic active hepatitis. Twenty cases of healthy subjects served as controls. Serum (GDF-15), (AFP), Ferritin and Hepatitis markers were measured by ELISA method. Measurement of different liver enzyme activity was done by the kinetic methods. Results: Data analysis revealed significant increase in serum levels of GDF15 in patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and Liver Cirrhosis (LC) compared to the healthy subjects. These results were parallel to those of serum levels of AFP, which also demonstrated significant increase in all patients groups as compared to normal control. A moderate increase in the GDF15 level was detected in the patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) compared to normal healthy subjects. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that GDF15 and AFP detection can help in the diagnosis and prediction of complications associated with CHC including liver cirrhosis and HCC. Also GDF15 can be used as a satisfactory serum marker of HCC and LC.