Assessment of hepatic fibrosis in pediatric cases with hepatitis C virus in Egypt

Table 1 Characteristic features of studied patients n = 43

	No Fibrosis	Fibrosis	P value
	(n = 12)	(n = 31)
Sex
Boys	8	16	0.37 (NS)
Girls	4	15
High ALT (n = 28)	7	21	0.72 (NS)
Injections (n = 11)	2	9	0.41 (NS)
Blood transfusion (n = 37)	12	25	0.10 (NS)
Frequency of transfusion
Once	2	6	0.61 (NS)
Multiple	10	19
Surgical procedures (n = 8)	4	4	0.19 (NS)
Household contact infected with HCV (n = 1)	0	1	0.53 (NS)
No risk factor (n = 4)	1	3	0.86 (NS)
Blood disease (n = 20)
Red cell aplasia	1	0	0.14 (NS)
Sickle cell anemia	0	1
Thalassemia	8	10
Malignancy (n = 7)
ALL	0	3	NA
Lymphoma	0	4

NA: not applicable (as P value cannot be calculated).

Table 2 Analysis of data among patients with no, mild and moderate to extensive fibrosis (Kruskal Wallis test)

	No fibrosis (n = 12)	Mild fibrosis (n = 20)	Moderate to extensive fibrosis (n = 11)	P
	Median (min-max)	Median (min-max)	Median (min-max)
Age at biopsy	9 (3.5 yr-13 yr)	7.3 (1 yr-19 yr)	11 (2 mo-18 yr)	0.394 (NS)
Duration from exposure to biopsy (mo) (n = 29)	43.8	36	12	0.627 (NS)
	(12-144)	(12-120)	(2.4-144)
Duration from first detected ALT elevation to biopsy (mo)	12	6	1.2	0.015 (S)
	(0-24)	(0-24)	(0-7.2)
Duration from exposure to first detected ALT elevation (mo)	30	18	12	0.411 (NS)
(n = 29)	(12-132)	(0-119)	(1.2-141)
Total bilirubin (mg/dL)	1.65	0.8	1.5	0.270 (NS)
	(0.-5.2)	(0.3-4.3)	(0.4-11)
Direct bilirubin (mg/dL)	0.3	0.2	0.5	0.048 (S)
	(0.1-2.5)	(0.1-1.3)	(0.1-10)
ALT (IU/L)	77	88	97	0.649 (NS)
	(17-367)	(16-432)	(30-1200)
AST (IU/L)	69	84	96	0.912 (NS)
	(27-273)	(28-415)	(26-927)
Albumin (mg/dL)	3.6	4.2	3.1	0.119 (NS)
	(2.9-4.7)	(3.1-5.3)	(2.8-4.7)
Prothrombin Concentration (%)	80	87	80	0.458 (NS)
	(66-100)	(60-100)	(55-97)
Platelets count (thousands/mm3)	333	266	306	0.329 (NS)
	(110-284)	(138-396)	(95-302)
HAI	5	5	4	0.574 (NS)
	(0-11)	(0-10)	(0-9)
TIS	9	3	9	0.49 (NS)
	(0-27)	(0-18)	(0-18)
Steatosis	n = 12	n = 20	n = 11
None (n = 30)	10	13	7	0.61 (NS)
Mild (n = 5)	0	4	1
Moderate (n = 6)	2	2	2
Severe (n = 2)	0	1	1

Table 3 Association of fibrosis stage with co-morbid condition

	Fibrosis groups			Total
	Nofibrosis	Minimalfibrosis	Extensivefibrosis
	n = 12	n = 20	n = 11
Without co-morbid condition	3	7	6	16
With co-morbid condition	9	13	5	27

P = 0.33 (NS).