IP-10 Can Be Measured in Dried Plasma Spots in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C Infection

Abstract

The chemokine IP-10 (CXCL10) is a candidate marker for hepatitis C virus (HCV) fibrosis monitoring. The aim of this proof-of-concept study is to assess if IP-10 measurements from dried plasma spots (DPS) are accurate in HCV-infected patients with either minimal or significant fibrosis. We measured IP-10 levels in plasma and DPS of 21 HCV-infected patients with cirrhosis and 19 patients with no/little fibrosis (determined with FibroScan). Cirrhotic patients had significantly higher levels of IP-10 compared to patients with minimal fibrosis. DPS and plasma measurements of IP-10 are comparable and the correlation was excellent (r2 = 0.97, p<0.0001). The DPS based method for IP-10 detection performs well in HCV-infected patients with either minimal or significant fibrosis. © 2012 Ruhwald et al.