Role of Intercellular Adhesion Molecules as tumor marker for detection of Hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of death from cancer worldwide which accounts for 80%-90% of primary liver cancer. It is characterized by a very poor prognosis. Outcome of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) depends mainly on its early diagnosis. Serum ?-fetoprotein (AFP) is the marker that has been widely used for screening and diagnosis of HCCs. However, development of false-negative or false-positive rates with (AFP) was as high as 30%-40% for patients with small hepatocellular carcinomas. Thus the identification of novel biochemical markers for HCC remains an important goal for many laboratories around the world. Intercellular Adhesion Molecule–1(ICAM-1) is one of the positive prognostic markers secreted abundantly in several human tumors including HCC. This study was aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of sICAM-1 as complementary marker for early diagnostic and predictive occurrence of HCC in patients with chronic Hepatitis C induces liver cirrhosis. This study was conducted on a total number of 120 patients. The patients were subdivided as follows. Group( I): included 20 normal healthy subjects (as controls), while Group (2): included 50 patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 4 developed to cirrhosis and Group( 3)included 50 hepatocellular carcinoma patients proven to be infected with chronic HCV genotype -4 diagnosed by HCV PCR, ultrasound assessment, abdominal triphasic CT and serum AFP. Serums AFP, ICAM-1 were measured for all groups by ELISA technique. Serum ICAM-1 levels ranged from (419 – 554, 540 -1800 and 1135- 2514 ng/mL) in the control, chronic hepatitis C and HCC groups respectively. Serum ICAM-1 levels were highly significantly elevated in HCC group than that of chronic hepatitis C and the control groups (p<0.001). Also, this study indicates that, the level of Serum ICAM-1 increase with the degree of liver function impairment in patients groups. Moreover, there was a statistically significant positive correlation was found between the level of Serum ICAM-1 and the tumor size in HCC group (p 15.56 ng/ml, we found that specificity and sensitivity of AFP were 68.6% and 86.0 % respectively.