[Transaminases and histological activity in chronic hepatitis C]

The purpose of our study was to verify the correlation between biochemical and histological inflammatory activity in chronic hepatitis C. The histological activity index (HAI) of 42 patients with chronic hepatitis C was correlated with their transaminase activity. There was indeed a significant correlation between histological activity and the AST (r = 0.54, p = 0.0002) and ALT level (r = 0.36, p = 0.018) respectively. Due to considerable scatter of the results, transaminase activity did not allow reliable assessment of inflammatory activity in individual cases. In the majority, markedly elevated transaminase activity was associated with marked histological inflammatory activity, whereas normal or slightly elevated transaminase activity was found in all stages of inflammatory activity. To assess inflammatory activity in chronic hepatitis C, a liberal indication for liver biopsy should therefore be adopted.