| Popis: |
Although the role of cholesterol in tumourigenesis is unclear, it is used by the tumoural cells for biosynthetic processes and for steroid synthesis.To accertain whether plasma cholesterol levels might be a reliable neoplastic marker of a developing hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with liver cirrhosis.Plasma cholesterol has been studied in 287 liver cirrhosis patients without hepatocellular carcinoma and in 132 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.Cholesterol (mean +/- SEM) was higher in hepatocellular carcinoma patients when compared with age-, sex- and Child-Pugh class matched cirrhotic controls. In Child-Pugh class A, B and C with uncomplicated liver cirrhosis these values were, respectively, 142.0 +/- 2.5, 117.3 +/- 2.5, 97.4 +/- 2.9 vs 172.5 +/- 4.7, 163.8 +/- 7.9, 153.5 +/- 8.0 +/- mg/dl in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (p0.001). A significant increase of cholesterol (p0.001) has been reported in the patients with liver cirrhosis when complicated by hepatocellular carcinoma and it was not related to cholestasis.This observation seems to suggest that the enhanced cholesterol biosynthesis by tumoural cells leads to a rise in plasma cholesterol of patients with cancer, and, moreover, that, this increase may be used as a neoplastic marker indicating the development of a tumour in patients with liver cirrhosis. |
