Bcl-2 and p53 expression in hepatic tissues of Egyptian patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

Objective: to investigate b-cell-lymphoma-2 and tumour protein p53 expression in hepatic tissues of human cases of chronic hepatitis c. methods: the case-control study was conducted from december 2011 to february 2014 at the out-patient department of gastroenterology surgical centre,faculty of medicine,mansoura university,mansoura,egypt,and comprised healthy individuals and treatment-naive chronic hepatitis c patients who had undergone liver biopsy. liver biopsy was taken frompatients prior to antiviral therapy or any other anti-fibrotic therapy. serummarker levels were investigated on the day of biopsy or within 5 days after it. blood platelet count was also investigated using standard methods. formalin-fixed,paraffin-embedded sections were stained with haematoxylin and eosin and for apoptosis detection,b-cell-lymphoma-2 and tumour protein p53 expression in tissue was investigated through immunohistochemistry. slides were labelled with patient identification numbers and then reviewed and graded blindly by a senior pathologist. spss 16 was used for statistical analysis. results: of the 140 subjects in the study,120(85.7%) were patients with a mean age of 39±8.7 years (range: 11-64 years) and 20(14.3%) were healthy controls with a mean age of 38.6±7.4 years (range: 14-66 years). the patients had higher body mass index but the difference was not significant (p>0.05),while the difference in the levels of alanine transaminase,aspartate aminotransferase,alpha fetoprotein and platelet count was significant (p<0.05 each). the highest expression of b-cell-lymphoma-2 was detected in chronic hepatitis c stage,while the highest expression of p53 was detected in hepatocellular carcinoma stage. conclusion: the expression of both b-cell-lymphoma-2 and tumour protein p53 might play diagnostic role during the different stages of the disease. © 2015,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.