Hepatitis C: From inflammatory pathogenesis to anti-inflammatory/hepatoprotective therapy

Table 1 Potential inflammatory biomarkers of hepatitis C

Biomarker	Clinical relevance	Ref.
TNF-α	Promoting development of insulin resistance and diabetes during HCV infection; Hepatic TNF-α was associated with increased inflammatory activity, hepatic fibrosis, liver injury and HCC	[15-19]
IL-6	Evaluating the progression of CHC to cirrhosis; Plasma IL-6 positively correlated with illness duration and viral load in HBV/HCV co-infected patients	[13,20]
IL-8	Associated with interferon therapy non-response and high histologic activities in CHC patients	[29,30]
IL-18	Plasma IL-18 concentration was positively correlated with ALT and AST levels in HBV/HCV co-infected patients; A marker for evaluating the effect of IFN on the immune state	[20,21]
CXCL-9	Potential marker for evaluating the progression of CHC to cirrhosis	[13,14]
CXCL-10	CXCL-10 level in hepatocytes correlated with histological severity and hepatic lobule inflammation; A marker of viral response and therapeutic outcome	[5,13,14,23,24]

TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-α; IL-6/-8/-18: Interleukin-6/-8/-18; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; CHC: Chronic hepatitis C; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; IFN: Interferon; HBV: Hepatitis B virus.