Hepatocyte growth factor, adiponectin and hepatic histopathology in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and Adiponectin are adipokines. Serum HGF and adiponectin levels are strongly associated with liver disease, obesity, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome (MS). Non alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the hepatic component of metabolic syndrome. Our aim was to elucidate the status of HGF, adiponectin levels and histopathology of liver in NASH.

This study was conducted among 50 subjects (25 patients and 25 controls) age and sex matched attending OPD. Patients were randomly selected for the study and after explaining in detail design of the study, written consent was taken. Institutional ethical approval was also taken.The only diagnostic method for NASH is liver biopsy (after exclusion of other causes based upon clinical examination and laboratory investigations) and pathological grading and staging was done according to Brunt classification. Diagnosis of patients was done on the basis of liver biopsy and fasting HGF and adiponectin were performed with commercially available ELISA kits (quantikine HGF and adiponectin ELISA kits).

Mean serum HGF in patient and control groups were 2.33 +/- 0.66 pg/ml and 0.56 +/- 0.21 pg/ml respectively (p < 0.001). Mean serum adiponectin in patient and control groups were 6.93 +/- 1.50 ng/ml and 14.54 +/- 3.58 ng/ml respectively (p < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis revealed that statistically significant difference was found (p < .001) when comparing mean brunt grade and brunt stage (hepatic histopathology) with fasting serum adiponectin and HGF CONCLUSION: Fasting serum HGF was significantly high and fasting serum adiponectin was significantly low in patients of various grades of hepatic histopathology in NASH.Various parameters of MS were significantly correlated with various stages of hepatic histopathology, as well as decreased serum adiponectin and increased fasting serum HGF.