Serum levels of hyaluronate in chronic liver diseases with special reference to hepatic fibrosis

Abstract

Serum hyaluronate (HY) is degraded in the endothelial cells of liver sinusoids. In chronic liver diseases, especially in cirrhosis the basement membranes appear belong sinusoidal walls, so the function of the endothelial cells are impaired. To examine the relationship of serum levels of HY with the degree of hepatic fibrosis, we measured the collagen contents of the biopsied liver specimens by the computed image analyzer from 47 patients with chronic viral liver diseases comparing serum levels of HY. For total patients (47) correlation coefficients (r value) was 0.636 (significant, p<0.001). Correlation coefficients for chronic inactive hepatitis (8), chronic active hepatitis (33) and liver cirrhosis (6) were 0.424 (not significant), 0.413 (significant, p<0.02), 0.631 (tended to correlated but not significant) respectively. These data indicate that in chronic viral liver diseases the dysfunction of sinusoidal endothelial cells progresses with the hepatic fibrosis.