Preliminary studies onnitric oxide (no)‎, tumor necrosis factor al-pha (tnf)‎, Intercellular adhession molecule-1 (icam-1)‎ and afp levelsin serum of Egyptian farmers infected with hepatits b and c viruses and heptocellular acrcinoma (hcc)‎ patients

Abstract EN

Serum levels of Nitric Oxide (NO), Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha (TNF-∝), Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and AFP were evaluated among two groups of Egyptian farmers.

Group one was composed of 37 farmers infected with HCV and HBV while group two included 10 HCC patients, hospitalized at NCI.

Sera of 10 healthy individuals were used as a control group.

Blood samples were collected from 37 farmers resident in El-Sharkia Governorate-Egypt, tested for HBsAg, HCV-antibody by ELISA and HCV by RT-PCR and divided into three subgroups ; HBsAg positive group (n = 10), HCV-antibody positive and HCV-RNA negative group (n = 17) and HCV-antibody and HCV-RNA positive group (n = 10).

Measurement of serum NO, TNF-∝, ICAM-1, AFP, AST, ALT and albumin as well as abdominal ultrasonography examination of the liver were done for all groups.

There was a significant increase in NO, TNF-∝, ICAM and AFP in HCC positive group, and in NO and ICAM-1 in HBsAg positive group.

HCV-antibody seropositive group had a significant increase in TNF-∝, ICAM-1 and AFP, while the other HCV-antibody seropositive and HCV-RNA positive group had a significant increase in ICAM-1, AFP, NO and TNF-∝.

The present results showed significant correlation between NO and ICAM-1 (r = 0.855, p = 0.002) and between AFP and hepatomgaly percentage (r = 0.764, p = 0.001) in the group of patients infected with HCV and positive for both antibodies and HCV-RNA.

Also this group of patients exhibited high percentage of liver cirrhosis (40 %) obtained by ultrasonography examination than the other groups.

In Conclusion : the elevation of AFP and its correlation to percentage of the hepatomegaly among group of patients infected with HCV and positive for both antibodies and HCV-RNA as well as the high percentage of cirrhosis observed by ultrasonography examination and the positive correlation levels of NO and ICAM-1 in this group of patients led us to conclude that patients infected with HCV and positive for both antibodies and RT-PCR were strongly associated with HCC among Egyptian farm- ers compared to others infected with HBV and / or HCV and positive only for antibodies and negative for RT-PCR.