Significance of the Ratio between Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-Binding Protein-3 as a Predictive Marker of Insulin Resistance in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a worldwide disease affecting millions of people and inducing a range of chronic liver disease sequelae as decompensated cirrhosis and liver cancer. Chronic HCV (CHC) infection is associated with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Many studies stated that Patients having CHC have significantly higher insulin resistance than healthy individuals matched in age, sex and body mass index. Recent studies have shown that insulin resistance induced by CHC is associated with more complications (e.g. more hepatic fibrosis, bleeding esophageal varices, hepatocellular carcinoma, more resistance to anti-viral treatment and poor post-liver transplantation outcome). Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) is secreted mostly from the liver and circulates in the blood bound to binding proteins, the most abundant one is Insulin-like growth factor–binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) and it has the highest affinity for IGF-1.