The potential of angiogenesis soluble markers in chronic hepatitis C

✍ Scribed by Xamila Salcedo; Jesús Medina; Paloma Sanz-Cameno; Luisa García-Buey; Samuel Martín-Vilchez; María J. Borque; Manuel López-Cabrera; Ricardo Moreno-Otero

• Book ID: 102237681
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 144 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.20828

✦ Synopsis

Angiogenesis, the formation of new vessels, has been reported to play a significant pathogenic role in liver damage-associated hepatitis C virus infection. Most of our current knowledge derives from immunohistochemical studies of hepatic biopsy samples obtained from chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients. We evaluated whether CHC is associated with elevated serum levels of angiogenesis markers and whether these are modulated by therapy. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), and soluble Tie-2 (sTie-2) were determined in the serum of 36 CHC patients, before and after receiving antiviral combination therapy with pegylated interferon alpha-2b plus ribavirin, and in 15 healthy controls. CHC patients showed elevated baseline VEGF and Ang-2 levels. After treatment, both factors were decreased, whereas antiangiogenic sTie-2 was increased, indicating a shift toward an "anti-angiogenic" profile of serum markers in CHC patients. In conclusion, this suggests that serum VEGF, Ang-2, and sTie-2 levels could be useful as noninvasive, mechanistically based markers of response to therapy and disease progression in CHC. (HEPATOLOGY 2005