Background
Worldwide hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related death, associated with a poor prognosis due to late diagnosis in the majority of cases, where the latest global cancer statistics indicate that liver cancer (HCC) ranks second among the causes of cancer-related deaths. HCC mostly appears in patients with chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis in which there is continuous inflammation processes and regeneration of hepatocytes. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is considered a major global health problem, where it is a very important cause of mortality, morbidity, and resource utilization. However, remarkable differences are detectable in the world, depending on geographical areas and ethnicity. It is estimated that the prevalence of HCV infection is about 2% worldwide.
Aim
The aim of this study is to assess the diagnostic and prognostic role of detection of serum level of glypican-3 (GPC-3) as a biomarker for the diagnosis of HCC among the Egyptian patients with chronic HCV-related cirrhosis before and after interventional treatment.
Patients and methods
This study will be conducted on 60 patients with liver cirrhosis, where 30 patients developed HCC and are candidates for thermal (15 patients) and transarterial chemoembolization (15 patients) therapy and 30 without evidence of HCC with liver cirrhosis as controls. Patients and controls will be selected from the Department of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology in Ain Shams University Hospitals and Hepatology Department in National Hepatology and Tropical Medicine Research Institute.
Results
In the current study, the group of HCC patients reported significant increase in the serum of GPC-3 than cirrhotic controls. Also GPC-3 showed a significant risk factor for recurrence among the treated groups.
Conclusion
GPC-3 has better diagnostic performance than alfa feto protein (AFP) in differentiating HCC from other groups and giving better evaluation in response to treatment in different HCC groups in addition to a combination of GPC-3 and AFP among HCC groups (radiofrequency and transarterial chemoembolization) slightly increases the sensitivity of AFP.
