Elevated Renin Levels in Patients with Liver Cirrhosis and Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Liver fibrosis is the common consequence of chronic liver injury of any etiology, disrupting the normalarchitecture,and causing hepatocellular dysfunction and portal hypertension. Since the renin-angiotensin system(RAS) may be involved in chronic liver diseases, in the present study we assayed renin levels using ELISA in groupsof Egyptian patients with liver cirrhosis (N=32) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (N=67), for comparisonwith twenty five healthy controls. The results showed significant differences between the control and liver cirrhosispatients (P<0.001) and also the controls and HCC patients (P<0.001), without significant variation between thepatient groups. Furthermore, in HCC patients, it was found that the renin levels negatively correlated with serumalbumin and prothrombin time (P=0.003 for each) and positively with α-fetoprotein (P=0.04). Thus, it is concludedthat renin levels are elevated in patients with liver cirrhosis and HCC and suitable medical intervention shouldbe placed for management of such alteration. Moreover, further studies are warranted to explore its prognosticsignificance.