Muhammad Humayun, Zameer Ahamad, Muhammad Mustansar, Ambreen Khalid.
Comparison of serum alinine aminotransferase (ALT) of newly diagnosed patients of hepatitis C with healthy individuals.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;5(2):352-4.

Viral hepatitis is one of the major public health problem all over the world. Once infection with HCV occurs it leads to chronicity in upto 85% of cases. This can lead to cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and liver failure. The serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level test had been shown to be a viable and cost-effective screening test for HCV infection that could reduce the incidence of post-transfusion infection. Serum Alanine Amino Transferase (ALT) is the most frequently utilized screening test in routine evaluation of liver damage. Donors with increased catalytic activity of ALT are excluded from future blood donations, even if their anti Hepatitis C virus status is non reactive. Present study was to evaluate the importance of S/ALT in newly diagnosed patients of HCV from the blood donors and the comparison with normal healthy individuals with seronegative HCV with same ratio of age, sex and BMI . In the present study 100 patients newly diagnosed patients of HCV were enrolled, compared with 100 normal healthy individuals. The mean S/ALT in normal persons was 25.22±8.03 and in newly diagnosed patients was 48.75±6.26 with P value 0.035 which is significant.: From our study we can concluded that S/ALT can be a useful marker for the diagnosis of HCV in blood donors and in whom there is some technical problem to diagnose by routine screening test.

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