CD 38 + Liver Stellate Cells in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients with Fibrosis

Background: Hepatitis C virus infection will cause injury to the hepatocytes. This injury to the hepatocyte will activate liver with aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), and quantitative amount of hepatitis C virus ribonucleic acid (HCV RNA) in chronic hepatitis C. Method: This study was a cross sectional study performed in 32 patients with chronic hepatitis C who had liver tissue was further stained using haematoxylin and eosin technique to identify the metavir degree which is categorized into mild-moderate or severe degree. Special staining is performed to evaluate liver stellate cells


INTRODUCTION
Approximately 3% of the world population is infected with hepatitis C virus.Protein of the hepatitis C virus modulates apoptosis and steatosis, liver cell Around 10-20% will develop into liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.While the body immune system tries to eliminate the virus, liver cells injury cytokines. 1,2Hepatitis C virus infection will cause injury to the hepatocytes.This injury to the hepatocytes will activate liver stellate cells.Activated stellate cells reaction of granulation tissue development which is associated with injury to the liver parenchyma cells and occurs in the long-term.Fibrogenic response is marked by the accumulation of extracellular matrix be achieved by ceasing the chronic injury process towards the liver cells.By ceasing the injury to liver 3 Although it has been known that other mesenchymal liver cells also contribute in the accumulation of extracellular matrix, stellate cells activation pathway is still considered as the response towards liver tissue injury. 4These cells have effort to the identify active stellate cells is an important thing in the process of understanding pathogenesis, 5 Stellate liver cell itself is a mesenchymal cell in the liver that has high degree of heterogenicity and plasticity; therefore it contains many compounds immunohistochemical staining.5][6][7] A study performed by Abdeen et al in chronic hepatitis patients revealed that CD38+ staining could be used to identify liver stellate cells and was a strong predictor for moderate al in chronic hepatitis C patients proved that CD38+ liver stellate cells count was strongly correlated with 8 In identifying METAVIR fibrosis score from mild to severe, CD38+ staining technique has better .77.27% with lower sensitivity, which was 90% vs. 95%.Additionally, the positive predictive value of of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) virus affects the injury in hepatocytes.This number of CHC virus is measured in the form of quantitative HCV RNA.Hepatocyte cell which is injured will release transaminase enzyme in the form of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase glutamic (ALT) which can be measured in the blood. 4According to Sandulescu et al, there was weak association between ALT and active liver stellate cells in chronic hepatitis C. 9,10 In the last few years, studies using CD38+ as a liver stellate cells marker was still rarely performed.This study aimed to identify the association between CD38+ liver stellate cells count and several clinical parameters in CHC RNA, AST and ALT values.

METHOD
This study was an observational analytic study and used cross sectional study design.Research would be performed in Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital by analysing medical records.Target population in this study was chronic hepatitis C patients.Inclusion criteria in this study were chronic hepatitis C patients who had undergone biopsy, patient gave consent to participate in the study.Exclusion criteria of this study were presence of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients, hepatoprotector drugs consumption, viral infection which could increase AST-ALT, diabetes mellitus, fatty liver, not currently suffering from typhoid fever; not currently suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis.All samples included in this study would receive explanation before hand on the objectives, procedures to be performed, and complications that might happen in this study.Samples could only participate if they had given written consent.Variables that would be evaluated were number of ALT value, and quantitative HCV RNA.
Samples are study subjects who are part of the and exclusion criteria.Study samples were collected by identifying data of chronic hepatitis C patients who had undergone liver ultrasonography (USG), did not suffer from hepatoma, and had undergone liver searched in the Pathological Anatomy Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia (FMUI)/ Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, and later the Metavir categorized into mild or severe degree, and were further results of this staining, number of stellate liver cells be counted.
Data collected from this study was number of of liver biopsy, AST, ALT values; quantitative HCV block of the liver biopsy with the following steps: to all cutting would be performed for immunohistochemical staining with 4 micron thickness using avidin biotin for immunohistochemical staining of liver stellate cells, CD38+ was used.From these staining, we could and presented the results in numerical category.
Obtained research results would be analysed statistically to evaluate the correlation between independent and dependent variables.Data from the research results was further recorded and analysed using SPSS version 13.Data would be presented in 3 Hypothesis testing was performed by bivariate analysis between independent variables and each dependent variables in numericvariables and numeric for AST, ALT, and quantitate HCV RNA variables.For data in numeric-numeric measurement scale, hypothesis testing being used was correlation test, particularly Pearson correlation test and Spearman correlation test.For data in numericcategorical measurement scale, we performed analysis using Mann Whitney test.Ethical clearance for this study has been submitted and approved by Health Research Ethics Committee FMUI.

RESULTS
A total of 32 biopsy preparations of chronic hepatitis C patients, which consisted of 20 males and 12 females were included in this study.Patients aged more than 40 years old were 16 patients and those aged below 40 were 16 patients.Table 1 showed the distribution of subjects' characteristics based on sex and age.In this study, we reported no correlation found between CD38+ stellate liver cells with AST (p = 0.2) or even ALT (p = 0.7) value.

Figure 1. Correlation between CD38+ liver stellate cells and AST value Figure 2. Correlation between CD38+ liver stellate cells and ALT value
Analysis results on the correlation of CD38+ liver stellate cells and quantitate HCV RNA reported that there was no correlation between CD38+ liver stellate cells and quantitative HCV RNA (r = -0.372).with the number of active liver stellate cells. 1 In that study, it was concluded that activated liver stellate cells liver cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis C patients.

Quantitative HCV RNA
Results of correlation analysis between CD38+ liver stellate cells and AST in chronic hepatitis C patients in this study showed that there was no correlation between AST and number of CD38+ liver stellate cells in chronic hepatitis C patients (p = 0.20).Study conducted by Nadeem et al in 107 non-cirrhotic hepatitis C patients and had not received treatment for hepatitis C revealed that there was no association between AST showed that there was no correlation between AST value and number of CD38+ liver stellate cells. 11This to represent condition of the liver but also that of the heart, skeletal muscle, kidney, brain, and red blood cells. 12Meanwhile, for correlation analysis between CD38+ liver stellate cells and ALT in chronic hepatitis C patients that hepatocellular injury could lead to the release of cytosol alanine transaminase enzyme into the blood circulation.ALT value is often used as a marker of liver injury in chronic hepatitis C patients, which include assessment to progressivity, evaluation of therapy and prognosis. 13In this study, the obtained results showed that there was no correlation between ALT and number of CD38+ liver stellate cells in chronic hepatitis C patients (p = 0.70).Study performed by Pradat et al to 864 positive HCV RNA patients with normal ALT value for 6 months which was measured from the time of liver tissue collection to ALT value before administration of therapy. 14Normal ALT value normal value which was obtained for 6 months.The study revealed that there was no correlation between C patients before receiving therapy.This could be caused by the activity of ALT which changes easily, sex, body mass index.In chronic hepatitis C patients, liver cell death can occur through apoptosis and necrosis, thus the cells that are almost dead produce less ALT.This explains why there was weak correlation 13 Puoti et al also studied 46 carrier hepatitis C patients with persistent normal ALT and compared them with 52 positive HCV RNA patients with increased ALT value. 15Results of this study revealed that there was no difference between patients with normal ALT value and patients with increased ALT value, therefore it was concluded that there was no correlation between the and ALT value, indirectly it showed that there was no correlation between CD38+ liver stellate cells and ALT value.Number of publications which opposed this assertion encouraged Kyrlagkitsis et al to conduct a retrospective study to 91 chronic hepatitis C patients with persistent normal ALT value and to 94 patients with abnormal liver biochemistry by comparing liver histology appearance from each groups. 16Development Researchers reported one from six chronic hepatitis C experienced progressive liver disease.They also found compared to patients with abnormal ALT value. 13ssessment of correlation between quantitative HCV RNA and CD38+ liver stellate cells in chronic hepatitis C patients showed that there was no correlation between quantitative HCV RNA and CD38+ liver stellate cells.This was similar with the cohort study conducted by Fanning et al to 77 chronic hepatitis C patients by monitoring clinical parameter, biochemistry, and histology. 17The results of the study revealed that there was no significant correlation between quantitative HCV RNA with degree of liver 17 Study performed by Romeo et al also reported similar result.The study was conducted to 170 chronic hepatitis C patients and 27 hepatocellular carcinoma patients who had undergone liver biopsy.The results of the study exhibited that advancement of hepatitis C disease was not associated with genotype difference or HCV RNA level. 18Deterioration of hepatitis C disease was in accordance with the development of the increase of liver stellate cells.Hence, we could conclude that HCV RNA level was not correlated with liver stellate cells.

CONCLUSION
From this study, we can conclude that the number of compared to the number of CD38+ stellate liver cells in and number of CD38+ stellate liver cells; between ALT and number of CD38+ stellate liver cells and between quantitate HCV RNA and number of CD38+ CD38+ Liver Stellate Cells in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients with Fibrosis stellate liver cells were not found.Therefore, further studies are needed to develop soluble CD38+ from of active CD38+ stellate cells in chronic hepatitis C with normal ALT value and further studies are needed to identify the association between quantitative HCV RNA with other cells, to prevent the development of liver cirrhosis.

Table 1 . Distribution of subjects' characteristics based on sex and age (n=32)
CD38+ Liver Stellate Cells in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients with Fibrosis number of CD38+ stellate liver cells between severe shown in table 2.

Table 2 . Difference in the number of CD38+ stellate liver cells
*Mann Whitney Test