Serum Soluble Fas as a Seromarker of Disease Activity in Chronic Hepatitis C and the Possible Involvement of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells in the Production of Serum Soluble Fas

Fas-mediated apoptosis is considered to be a major form of liver cell death in chronic hepatitis C. Recently, serum soluble Fas has become measurable although its clinical significance in chronic liver diseases is not fully understood. We measured serum soluble Fas (sFas) levels in 22 normal volunteers, in 10 cases with autoimmune hepatitis type 1 (AIH), in 18 cases with chronic hepatitis C with autoimmune features (C-AIH), in 34 cases with chronic hepatitis without such features (C-CH) and in 17 cases with systemic lupus erythematosus. The mean sFas level in C-AIH was significantly higher (p<0.05) than C-CH and normal volunteers. As a whole, the serum sFas level positively correlated with aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (p<0.05) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (p<0.05), and inversely with peripheral platelet counts (p