Hepatic sinusoidal endothelium expression of CD34 inversely correlates with response to interferon-alpha in chronic viral hepatitis induced by hepatitis C virus infection

A prospective study was performed to establish whether hepatic sinusoidal e ndothelium (HSE) expression of CD34 in patients with chronic hepatitis indu ced by hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was associated with response to in terferon (IFN)-alpha, particular genotypes of HCV, biochemical parameters o r histopathological parameters. Irrespective of HCV genotype, there was sta tistically significant (p < 0.001) increase of CD34+ sinusoids per portal a rea among patients infected by HCV (42 +/- 9) compared to non-infected cont rol patients (6 +/- 3). However, CD34+ sinusoids per portal area significan tly (p = 0.018) augment in patients who did not respond to IFN-alpha treatm ent (50 +/- 4) as compared to patients experiencing sustained complete resp onse (32 +/- 4), and to patients with complete response who relapsed after IFN-alpha withdrawal (37 +/- 5). Neither histopathological manifestations n or HCV genotypes were found to be significantly related to CD34 expression parameters. However, multivariate analysis showed that infection with type 3a genotype HCV together with low HSE expression of CD34 were the most impo rtant combination of factors associated with response to IFN-alpha therapy. Thus, CD34 expression by HSE may contribute to predict which patients are most likely to respond to IFN-alpha therapy.