AgNORs, PCNA and Histologic Activity Index in Chronic Liver Disease

Authors: Koray CEYHAN, İlkser AKPOLAT, İbrahim KOBAT, Nazan BOZDOĞAN, Selim EREKUL

Abstract: Chronic hepatitis is a clinical and pathological syndrome, which has several causes and it is characterized by varying degrees of hepatocellular necrosis and inflammation. Several systems have been proposed to evaluate the diagnosis, grading and staging of chronic hepatitis. A histologic activity index (HAI) has been developed which generates a numerical score for liver biopsy specimens obtained from patients with chronic hepatitis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between HAI and proliferative activity markers, such as PCNA and AgNORs in biopsy specimens obtained from patients with chronic liver disease including chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Mean AgNOR counts and HAI were significantly higher in the chronic active hepatitis group than in the chronic persistent hepatitis group (P<0.001). There was a correlation between mean AgNOR values and HAI (p<0.01). There was no correlation between PCNA LI with conventional histologic classification, HAI and AgNOR counts (P>0.05). We suggest that, in contrast to PCNA, AgNORs may be a useful parameter in the histologic evaluation, like HAI.

Keywords: AgNORs, PCNA, Histologic activity index, chronic liver disease.

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