IL28B rs12979860 gene polymorphism in Egyptian patients with chronic liver disease infected with HCV.

Background: Egypt has one of the highest prevalences of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection worldwide. Although the IL28B gene polymorphism has been shown to modify the course of chronic HCV infection, this has not been properly assessed in the Egyptian population.

Materials And Methods: The IL28B rs12979860 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was therefore examined in 256 HCV-infected Egyptian patients (group II) at different stages of disease progression and in 48 healthy volunteers (group I).

Serum levels of β-catenin as a potential marker for genotype 4/hepatitis C-associated hepatocellular carcinoma.

The global rising incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which parallels the increase of hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence, has sparked a renewed interest in discovering additional HCC serum markers. In this study, we investigated the clinical use of serum E-cadherin, ICAM, MMP-2, VEGF, OPN and β-catenin as potential diagnostic makers for HCV/genotype 4-associated HCC. Twenty cases of healthy subjects, 11 cases with asymptomatic HCV/genotype 4 carriers (ASC), 28 chronic hepatitis (CH) cases and 32 patients with HCC were enrolled in this study.