The serum Arginase-1 correlation to child-pugh scores in predicting the severity of cirrhosis

Background: The Child-Pugh score is an internationally accepted system for grading the severity of chronic liver disease such as cirrhosis. It assesses the severity of the liver disease to avoid subjectivity and inconsistency. However, some non-invasive serological markers may also be useful to evaluate the stage of liver fibrosis in determining the severity of cirrhosis. Some of the known markers are Arginase-1 (ARG‑1), IL-13, fibronectin (FN), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1), and metalloproteinases-1 (MMP-1). Objective: To evaluate the correlation between the circulating levels of ARG-1, IL-13, FN, TIMP-1, MMP-1 with the score Child-Pugh in cirrhosis patients. Materials and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study enrolling fifty-six patients of the chronic liver with Child-Pugh A, B, and C. The score was calculated based on the value of serum bilirubin, serum albumin, internationalized normal ratio (INR), and the severity of ascites and hepatic encephalopathy. Serum ARG-1, IL-13, FN, TIMP‑1, MMP-1 were analyzed using an enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay. The differences were analyzed using Mann-Whitney test, Spearman’s correlation (univariate analysis), and multivariate analysis by the multi-regression test. Results: There was a significant correlation of ARG-1 serum with Child-Pugh scores (r = -0.589, p 0.05). However, we did not find a significant correlation between the Child-Pugh scores and the IL-13 (r=0.238, p=0.078), FN (r=-0.151, p=0.265), TIMP-1 (r=-0.158, p=0.244), and MMP-1 (r = -0.006, p = 0.967) with the Child-Pugh scores. Conclusion: The serum marker of ARG-1 was found correlated with the severity of the chronic liver disease.