Study of Serum Copeptin level as anovel biomarker predicting liver fibrosis in hepatitis c-infected patient

Abstract

There are many factors that can lead to liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension, which include viral hepatitis (Abd-Elsalam et al., 2018), alcohol abuse, sclerosing cholangitis, and common inborn errors of metabolism that include Wilson disease, hemochromatosis, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (Zhou et al., 2003). Viral hepatitis accounts for the majority of chronic liver diseases (CLDs) worldwide, CLD can progress to significant liver fibrosis or cirrhosis (Lavanchy et al., 2009). HCV is classified into seven genotypes and different subtypes, among which genotypes 1, 2 and 3 are more predominant than the others (Ray et al., 2018). HCV infection is considered to be one of the major risk factors for liver-related pathogenesis. Approximately 85% of infected individuals develop chronic infection. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that more than 71 million people are chronically infected with HCV globally, and approximately 0.39 million infected people died due to HCV-related liver complications annually (Ekpanyapong et al., 2019). Fibrosis is a consequence of wound-healing response, and is a continuous process of regeneration of damaged tissues by maintaining a balance between fibrogenesis and fibrolysis (Tsuchida et al., 2017). Cirrhosis is usually the final histological pathway whatever the underlying cause of liver diseases resulting in complications, such as portal hypertension, ascites, or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Tsochatzis et al., 2014).