TITLE:
Assessment of Insulin Resistance and Insulin Growth Factor-1 in Egyptian Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C
AUTHORS:
Inas Kostandi, Magy Bahgat, Naglaa Zayed, Laila Rashed
KEYWORDS:
Hepatitis C, Insulin Resistance, Interferon, Ribavirin, IGF-1
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases,
Vol.1 No.1,
November
24,
2011
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Insulin resistance (IR) is documented in patients with chronic hepatitis C(CHC), plays an important factor in disease progression and predicting poor response to treatment. In chronic liver disease, levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) were correlated with IR. Aim: To evaluate IR and serum levels of IGF-1 in Egyptian patients with CHC after anti-viral therapy. Patients and Methods: Forty biopsy-proven, non-diabetic, CHC patients, who received combined IFN/ribavirin therapy, in addition to 10 healthy controls were studied. Serum levels of IGF-1, growth hormone (GH) were measured and HOMA-IR(homeostasis model assessment of IR), body mass index (BMI) were calculated. Baseline data, retrieved from patients’ files before initiation of therapy, together with response to antiviral therapy were analyzed with respect to the measured variables. Results: All patients possessed a significant higher HOMA-IR score (p = 0.02), GH levels (p