1Fatma Abd EL-Salam, 1SA Abdou and 2Atef A Ibrahim.
Departments of 1Hepatology, Gastroenterology and Infectious Diseases and 2General Medicine, Benha Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University.
Fifty patients with hepatitis C virus-RNA-polymerase chain reaction (HCV-RNA-PCR) positive and histologically-documented chronic active hepatitis, and twenty-six healthy controls were studied. Urinary neopterin levels were estimated using double-antibody IRA technique. Patients were subjected to needle liver biopsy for the assessment of the histological activity index (HAI) according to the modified Knodell Score system. Multiple correlation and multivariant regression analysis proved that urinary neopterin was the only significant variable that correlates with the HAI. It is concluded that urinary neopterin excretion reflects disease activity in chronic hepatitis C virus infection much more efficiently than the commonly used conventional biochemical liver function tests.