Vitamina C plasmática está negativamente associada com a atividade das aminotransferases em pacientes com hepatite C não tratados

Abstract

In this study, the possible relationship between aminotransferase activities and markers of oxidative stress in hepatitis C patients was evaluated. Patients with HCV (hepatitis C virus) infection confirmed by positive HCV RNA in serum, without treatment to hepatitis C were divided into three groups: group I (15 to 39 U/L); group II (41 to 76 U/L); group III (81 to 311 U/L) of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity. A number of parameters were examined in blood as indicators of oxidative stress, including catalase, gluthatione peroxidase, thiobarbituric acid-reactive species (TBARS), non-protein thiol groups (NP-SH), protein thiol groups (P-SH) and vitamin C. The results demonstrated that markers of oxidative stress NP-SH, P-SH, TBARS, glutathione peroxidase and catalase activities measured in blood of these study groups were not significantly differents (P>0.05). The antioxidant vitamin C was significantly decreased in Group III (P=0.001) and Group II (P=0.03) when compared with Group I. The vitamin C level correlated negatively with AST activity (r=-0.29, P=0.042) for all patients. Our data suggested that vitamin C in plasma determination could be an additional indicator of hepatitis C severity, since plasma vitamin C was negatively associated with aminotransferase activities. Antioxidant therapy, such as vitamin C, may therefore have a role in retarded disease progression in liver