To evaluate the clinical significance of serum type IV collagen levels and adenosine deaminase (ADA) acitivity in patients with chronic liver diseases, we measured the type IV collagen and ADA in four groups, such as 20 healthy adults a normal
control
group, 18 patients with chronic hepatitis(CH), 44 patients with liver cirrhosis(LC) and 28 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
The serum levels of type IV collagen(mean±SD) were 69.4±14.4ng/ml in normal control group, 161.2±87.3ng/ml in CH group, 369.0±191.0ng/ml in LC group and 335.5±139.4ng/ml in HCC group. The type IV collagen levels in CH, LC and HCC groups were
higher
than that of the normal control group (P<0.01) and the type IV collagen in LC and HCC was higher than in CH group (P<0.01). The serum type IV collagen levels were not correlated with the activity of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine
aminotransferase(ALT) and ADA.
Compared to normal controls (13.7±2.2U/L), serum ADA activity was significantly elevated in patients with CH(40.1±17.8U/L), LC(41.7±9.4U/L) and HCC(35.0±12.2U/L) (P<0.01). Serum ADA activity in LC group was higher than in HCC group(P<0.05).
The results suggest that serum type IV collagen levels and ADA activity could be relatively simple and useful biochemical markers in chronic liver diseases.
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