Serum Clusterin as a Diagnostic Tool for HCV Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract
Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is consid-ered one of the major malignant tumors in the world. The number of cases increases every years and HCC almost always has a fulminant course with grave prognosis.
Aim of Study: Was to evaluate the clinical use of serum clusterin levels as a diagnostic tool for HCC with hepatitis C virus related cirrhosis.
Subjects and Methods: A total of 100 subjects, 80 patients and 20 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into 2 groups; group I: (30 patients) with HCV related liver cirrhosis, group II: (50 patients) with hepatocel-lular carcinoma. Serum levels of alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and clusterin (CLU) were measured. Alpha fetoprotein based on Chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA). Serum CLU concentration was performed using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay technique (ELISA).
Results: The mean values of serum clusterin increase significantly among HCC patients than controls and cirrhotic patients. The cirrhotic patients show significant decrease than controls group. The sensitivity and specificity for clusterin was 72.5% and 92% and for AFP was 77.3% and 100%, respectively. The AUC for clusterin was 0.8 (p<0.001) com-pared with 0.9 (p<0.001) for AFP. The combined parallel approach improved the diagnostic sensitivity to 96.5%. We found positive correlation between AFP and sCLU (r=0.31 and p=0.003).
Conclusion: Serum CLU levels should be a useful potential biomarker for HCC diagnosis.