TYPE III PRO-COLLAGEN PEPTIDE IN LIVER DISEASE IN HAEMOPHILIA

During the past 10 years we have carried out liver biopsies on haemophiliacs with biochemical evidence of chronic liver disease (CLD). To date 44 biopsies have been obtained from 35 patients. Histological diagnoses are Chronic Persistent Hepatitis (CPH) 24, Chronic Aggressive Hepatitis (CAH) 11 and Cirrhosis 9. Serial biopsies indicate that progressive liver disease is now a serious problem in haemophilia. Liver biopsy is not without risk and therefore it is important to identify factors which may be of value in predicting the nature of the liver disease or its progression. Since intra-hepatic fibrosis is a feature of CLD we measured Type III amino terminal propeptide of pro-collagen (PC III) by radio-immunoassay on samples taken within a mean of 4.8 months of the liver biopsy. A normal range was established as 4.3 - 15.7ng/ml on healthy subjects (median 7.0). Median values and ranges for patients with CPH (N=13), CAH (N=5) and cirrhosis (N=5) were 8 (5.4 - 23.4), 14.2 (7.2 - 19.8) and 14.2 (11.2 - 23.0)ng/ml respectively. Although pro-collagen III values tended to be higher in progressive liver disease (CAH and cirrhosis) this did not reach statistical significance. It would, therefore, appear that unlike serum IgG, pro-collagen III will not be a valuable predictor of progressive liver disease in haemophilia. A larger study is necessary to clarify this.