The levels of serum fibrosis marks and morphometric quantitative measurement of hepatic fibrosis

摘要

Objective: To study the relationship between the ser-um levels of hyaluronic acid (HA), procollagen typeⅢ (PCⅢ), collagen type Ⅳ (CIV) and the histologi-cal degree of hepatic fibrosis evaluated by imageanalysis, and the clinical significance of serum HA,PC Ⅲ, C Ⅳ in the diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis in pa-tients with chronic viral hepatitis.Methods: The concentrations of serum HA, PC Ⅲ, CⅣ in 151 patients with chronic viral hepatitis weremeasured by radioimmunoassay. Liver biopsies wereperformed in all the patients. Histological sections of4 μm thickness were stained with Masson’s trichromefor fibrosis assessment. Morphometric quantitativemeasurements for hepatic fibrosis assessment in the 4μm sections were performed using a fully automatedimage analysis system. Serum levels of HA, PC Ⅲ,and C Ⅳ were analyzed at different stages of liver pa-thology and compared with the morphometric quanti-tative measurements of hepatic fibrosis.Results: The serum levels of HA, PC Ⅲ, C Ⅳ all ele-vated gradually with the progression of the disease,and all reached the highest in patients with liver cir-rhosis. There was a significant difference in the levelsof these 3 components between liver cirrhosis groupand the other groups (P0.05). They all increasedsteadily with the histological stages of hepaticfibrosis, and reached the highest levels in stage Ⅳ.The serum levels of HA, PC Ⅲ, C Ⅳ were all positive-ly correlated with the histological stages of liver sec-tions and the morphometric measurement (P0.001). The coefficients with stages were 0.694,0.493, 0.552 (P0.001), respectively and with sur-face density of total collagen on liver biopsy sectionsby image analysis were 0. 715, 0. 595, 0. 573 (P0.001), respectively.Conclusion: The serum levels of HA, PC Ⅲ, C Ⅳwere in consistent with the degree of hepatic fibrosis,and the determination of these marks is valuable fordetecting hepatic fibrosis.