Chronic anaemia and adhesion molecules in patients with liver cirrhosis. A preliminary report

The aim of our study was to investigate circulating levels of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and vascular cellular adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) in cirrhotic patients, with and without chronic anaemia, to establish whether there was a relationship between inflammatory activity and anaemia.

We investigated 14 anaemic (mean hemoglobin value 10.65+/-1.06 g/dL) and 14 non anaemic (mean hemoglobin value 13.8+/-0.89 g/dL) subjects affected by virus C-related liver cirrhosis comparable for sex, age and degree of liver dysfunction such as expressed by Child-Pugh classification. Circulating sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 were measured by EIA commercial kit (R&D System Co, Abington, UK) and mean+/- standard deviation values in two groups were compared by t-test and Kruskall-Wallis test.

Mean+/-standard deviation sICAM-1 was 35.06+/-4.06 ng/mL in anaemic and 23.39+/- 6.1 ng/mL in non anaemic cirrhotic patients. Mean+/-standard deviation sVCAM-1 was 47.66+/-8.18 ng/mL in anaemic 31.77+/-6.08 ng/mL in non anaemic patients, respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between the two groups both in sICAM-1 (p=0.01) and sVCAM-1 (p=0.03) values.

Our study show that chronic anaemia, in liver cirrhosis, is associated to a greater increase of circulating adhesion molecules and suggests that inflammation may contribute to persistence of anaemic state, worsening the outcome of cirrhotic patients.