Geller S A, Nichols W S, Rojter S E, Chan R C, Petrovic L M, Vierling J M, Makowka L
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Hum Pathol. 1996 Nov;27(11):1161-5. doi: 10.1016/s0046-8177(96)90309-3.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been used to study liver biopsy tissue in patients with known or suspected hepatitis C virus (HCV). Recent studies of cryptogenic cirrhosis using PCR have been based on study of sera, and HCV has not been shown. The failure to show HCV in patients so studied has left unanswered the question of whether or not patients with cryptogenic cirrhosis could still harbor the virus in the liver. The authors studied liver tissue, obtained at the time of orthopic liver transplantation from 10 patients clinically diagnosed as having end-stage liver disease without demonstrable origin, so-called cryptogenic cirrhosis, using reverse transcription (RT)-PCR to try to recover HCV-RNA. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue was used. For comparison, the authors also studied similarly obtained samples from 10 patients with typical hepatitis C-associated cirrhosis and 10 patients with end-stage liver disease resulting from autoimmune hepatitis. The authors recovered HCV-RNA from 9 of 10 livers from patients with cirrhosis resulting from HCV, and 3 of 10 livers from patients with autoimmune hepatitis. HCV-RNA was not recovered from any of the livers of the 10 patients designated as having cryptogenic cirrhosis.
聚合酶链反应（PCR）已被用于研究已知或疑似丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染患者的肝活检组织。最近关于隐源性肝硬化的PCR研究是基于对血清的研究，尚未发现HCV。在这些研究的患者中未能检测到HCV，使得隐源性肝硬化患者肝脏中是否仍可能隐匿该病毒这一问题悬而未决。作者使用逆转录（RT）-PCR试图从10例临床诊断为终末期肝病但病因不明（即所谓的隐源性肝硬化）的患者原位肝移植时获取的肝组织中检测HCV-RNA。使用的是福尔马林固定、石蜡包埋的组织。作为对照，作者还研究了从10例典型丙型肝炎相关性肝硬化患者和10例自身免疫性肝炎导致的终末期肝病患者中同样获取的样本。作者从10例HCV导致的肝硬化患者的肝脏中，有9例检测到了HCV-RNA；从10例自身免疫性肝炎患者的肝脏中，有3例检测到了HCV-RNA。在被认定为隐源性肝硬化的10例患者的任何肝脏中均未检测到HCV-RNA。
