• Thanaa El A Helal, Nehal A Radwan, Heba A Mahmoud, Ahmed Me Zaki, Naglaa S Ahmed, Ali Aa Wahib, and Ahmed M Aref.
• Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Ramses Street- New Faculty Bldg. -5th floor, P.O. # 11566 Cairo, Egypt.
• Afr Health Sci. 2019 Mar 1; 19 (1): 1411-1421.

BackgroundInterferon therapy is used as a line of treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) in several areas of the world including Egypt.ObjectiveOur aim was to investigate the value of hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs) in predicting response of patients with chronic HCV, genotype 4 to pegylated interferon (PEGIFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) therapy.MethodsPre-treatment liver biopsies obtained from 110 patients with chronic HCV, genotype 4 were examined immunohistochemically for HPCs using cytokeratin19. The mean number of HPCs as ductular reaction (DR) and as isolated progenitor cells (IPCs) was counted in each case. The patients were classified into: those with sustained virological response (SVR) and those who did not achieve SVR. The results were compared between the two groups. Also, the relationships between HPCs and other clinico-pathologic variables were estimated using multivariate analysis.ResultsThe mean number of HPCs was the only independent predictor of therapeutic response, being significantly higher in non-responders (P = 0 for DR and P = 0.03 for IPCs). On the other hand, fibrosis stage and steatosis were the only independent factors which showed a significant direct association with the mean number of HPCs in the form of DR and IPCs (P = 0 for each).ConclusionThe number of HPCs provides prognostic information in chronic HCV since it is significantly associated with stage of fibrosis. More importantly, it can be used as a marker to predict response of patients with chronic HCV to PEGIFN plus RBV therapy.

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