Comparison between Fibroscan and Serum Taurine for Early Diagnosis of Liver Fibrosis in Egyptian Patients Infected with HCV

Abstract

Aim: The aim is to evaluate the role of measuring serum taurine level as an early biomarker for detection and staging of hepatic fibrosis in comparison to Fibroscan. Patients and methods:70 patients who are positive HCV are classified into five groups according to the scoring of Fibroscan. 10 healthy subjects were also enrolled as control group. Full clinical examination and complete biochemical analysis in addition to fibroscan and serum taurine as new marker are performed for all the selected patients and volunteers. Results:Results showed non-significant changes in the most Analytical data between the five groups of patients and control group, but a significant Increment in the serum level of ALT and AST in F4 Stage is noticed and marked decrease in platelets also found in F4. The most interesting point recorded is that Serum taurine levels were exhibited a value markedly lower than that recorded in control group and its decline was related to the severity of the diseases. Conclusion:It is suggested that the assessment of taurine level in sera of all hepatic patients beside fibroscan are of great value in the early diagnosis of any fibrotic changes in liver.

Evaluation of serum taurine as a prognostic marker for graft function in adult Egyptian patients undergoing living donor liver transplant

“…We found that the mean preoperative serum taurine was 26.8 ± 7.8 μmol L -1 in our series of patients, which is nearly similar to the taurine levels reported in cirrhotic patients [6] (28.865 ± 3.07661 μmol L -1 ), but lower than the level reported in hepatitis patients (46.7 ± 3.3 μmol L -1 ) [7]. These differences among the studies may be attributed to variations in the severity of liver injury in the studied patients that mandated liver transplantation, as the level of serum taurine was reported to correlate with the severity of liver insult.…”

“…This categorization was based on previous studies that considered hepatic patients are in the safe zone when their serum taurine levels were above 50 μmol L -1 , while those with taurine levels between 40 and 50 μmol L -1 were highly susceptible to hepatic complications, whereas advanced liver cirrhosis and susceptibility for HCC increased when taurine levels decreased below 30 μmol L -1 . A lot of researches considered taurine levels less than 20 μmol L -1 as a cut off value for HCC [6,7].…”

“…Taurine is an essential amino acid that is present at high concentrations in the liver [5]. The role of taurine in liver diseases has been investigated as a potential screening marker for early diagnosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced liver fibrosis [6] and early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) [7] as well as a potential prophylactic agent against HCC [8].…”