Letter To The Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Mar 27, 2019; 11(3): 330-334
Published online Mar 27, 2019. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v11.i3.330
Persistent elevation of fibrosis biomarker cartilage oligomeric matrix protein following hepatitis C virus eradication
Kristofer Andréasson, Göran Jönsson, Roger Hesselstrand, Hans Norrgren
Kristofer Andréasson, Roger Hesselstrand, Section of Rheumatology, Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Lund S-221 85, Sweden
Göran Jönsson, Hans Norrgren, Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Lund S-221 85, Sweden
Author contributions: Andréasson K, Jönsson G, Hesselstrand R and Norrgren H designed the study and wrote this letter; Norrgren H is in charge of the patients and performed the Fibroscan analyses; Andréasson K made the statistical analyses.
Supported by: Bengt Ihre Foundation, No. SLS-594-301 and SLS-789091.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they do not have anything to disclose regarding funding or conflict of interest with respect to this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kristofer Andréasson, MD, PhD, Reader (Associate Professor), Section of Rheumatology, Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Kioskgatan 3, Lund S-221 85, Sweden. kristofer.andreason@med.lu.se
Telephone: +46-46-171000 Fax: +46-46-128468
Received: January 13, 2019
Peer-review started: January 14, 2019
First decision: February 22, 2019
Revised: February 27, 2019
Accepted: March 16, 2019
Article in press: March 16, 2019
Published online: March 27, 2019
Processing time: 75 Days and 1 Hours
Abstract

Serum levels of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) has been presented as a biomarker of liver fibrosis in several cross-sectional studies. COMP is also an essential mediator in carcinoma development and has also been associated with hepatocellular carcinoma. We present a prospective analysis of this biomarker in 38 patients with chronic hepatitis C who were subject to eradication therapy with direct acting antivirals. We confirm previous studies associating COMP elevation with liver cirrhosis. We also show how viral levels are correlated with COMP at baseline. In our prospective analysis, we report that successful eradication of hepatitis C results in improvement in liver stiffness and laboratory liver function tests at 1 year follow-up. In contrast, median COMP-levels remain unchanged during the study period. We conclude that the biomarker potential of COMP in the prospective evaluation of liver diseases, remains to be elucidated.

Keywords: Hepatitis C; Chronic; Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein; Fibrosis

Core tip: Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) is a biomarker of fibrosis that has recently been introduced in the field of hepatology. COMP has also been associated with tumor development. This is the first prospective study of COMP in chronic liver disease. We confirm previous findings, relating S-COMP to liver cirrhosis. Eradication of hepatitis C was associated with improvements of liver function test and liver elasticity. In contrast, and unexpectedly, S-COMP remained unchanged in this cohort. We argue that the biomarker potential of COMP in chronic liver diseases needs further exploration, especially in reference to carcinoma development.