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©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin-2 and fibroblast growth factor 21 in alcohol-induced liver cirrhosis
Jarosław Jerzy Sak, Andrzej Prystupa, Paweł Kiciński, Dorota Luchowska-Kocot, Ewa Kurys-Denis, Hanna Bis-Wencel
Jarosław Jerzy Sak, Chair and Department of Humanities and Social Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-093, Poland
Andrzej Prystupa, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-081, Poland
Paweł Kiciński, Department of Experimental Hematooncology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-080, Poland
Dorota Luchowska-Kocot, Department of Medical Chemistry, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-093, Poland
Ewa Kurys-Denis, The Second Department of Radiology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-081, Poland
Hanna Bis-Wencel, Department of Microbiology and Reproductive Biology, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Lublin 20-950, Poland
Author contributions: Sak JJ and Prystupa A were involved in the conception of the study, data collection and analysis, drafting and revision of the manuscript; Kiciński P and Luchowska-Kocot D were involved in the data collection and analysis; Kurys-Denis E was involved in the drafting and revision of the manuscript; Bis-Wencel H contributed to the data collection and revision of the manuscript.
Supported by the Grant from the Medical University of Lublin, No. DS 507/2013–2015.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the Bioethics Committee at Medical University of Lublin, Poland.
Informed consent statement: All patients gave their written informed consent for participation in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at jaroslaw.sak@umlub.pl. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: Jarosław Jerzy Sak, MD, PhD, Academic Research, Additional Professor, Director, Chair and Department of Humanities and Social Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, ul. Chodźki 7 (Collegium Academicum), Lublin 20-093, Poland. jaroslaw.sak@umlub.pl
Received: January 4, 2021
Peer-review started: January 4, 2021
First decision: July 8, 2021
Revised: July 22, 2021
Accepted: November 24, 2021
Article in press: November 24, 2021
Published online: December 27, 2021
BACKGROUND
The importance of early diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease underscores the need to seek better and especially non-invasive diagnostic procedures. Leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin-2 (LECT2) has been widely studied to determine its usefulness in monitoring the course of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease but not for alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ALC).
AIM
To determine the concentration of LECT2 in the blood serum of patients in relation to progressive stages of ALC, its relation to fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF-1) and FGF-21, and to examine the possible wider use of LECT2 in diagnosing ALC.
METHODS
A retrospective case-control study was conducted with 69 ALC cases and 17 controls with no ALC. Subjects were recruited from the region of Lublin (eastern Poland). Liver cirrhosis was diagnosed based on clinical features, history of heavy alcohol consumption, laboratory tests, and abdominal ultrasonography. The degree of ALC was evaluated according to Pugh-Child criteria (the Pugh-Child score). Blood was drawn and, after centrifugation, serum was collected for analysis. LECT2, FGF-1, and FGF-21 were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits.
RESULTS
The LECT2 Levels in the control group were 18.99 ± 5.36 ng/mL. In the study groups, they declined with the progression of cirrhosis to 11.06 ± 6.47 ng/mL in one group and to 8.06 ± 5.74 ng/mL in the other (P < 0.0001). Multiple comparison tests confirmed the statistically significant differences in LECT2 Levels between the control group and both test groups (P = 0.006 and P < 0.0001). FGF-21 Levels were 44.27 ± 64.19 pg/mL in the first test group, 45.4 ± 51.69 pg/mL in the second (P = 0.008), and 13.52 ± 7.51 pg/mL in the control group. The difference between the control group and the second test group was statistically significant (P = 0.007).
CONCLUSION
We suggest that LECT2 may be a non-invasive diagnostic factor for alcohol-induced liver cirrhosis. The usefulness of LECT2 for non-invasive monitoring of alcohol-induced liver cirrhosis was indirectly confirmed by the multiple regression model developed on the basis of our statistical analysis.
Core Tip: Leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin-2 (LECT2) was first described in 1996 as a novel chemotactic factor for neutrophils. It has been widely studied to determine its usefulness for monitoring the course of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease but not for alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ALC). We suggest that LECT2 may be used for the non-invasive diagnosis of ALC.
