Liver Disease Diagnoses Based on Serum Adenosine Deaminase Activity

Abstract

Serum adenosine deaminase activities were determined for 307 healthy controls, 105 patients with various liver diseases including acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, hepatoma and liver cirrhosis, and34 patients with non-liver diseases.
Determination of adenosine deaminase activity was effective for diagnosing all the liver diseases examined. The normal range of adenosine deaminase was 6.8 to 19.5 U/L, with the adenosine deaminase activity increasing in the order of acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, and liver cirrhosis. The validity (sensitivity+specificity) values of adenosine deaminase in acute hepatitis, hepatoma and chronic hepatitis were 1.00, 1.20 and 1.20, respectively. The highest validity (1.64) was found for liver cirrhosis when the cut-off level of adenosine deaminase activity was set at 40 U/L. Consecutive measurement of adenosine deaminase activity may be useful for diagnosing various liver diseases and the cut-off activity of 40 U/L seems to be especially important for predicting liver cirrhosis.