Serum adiponectin correlates with viral characteristics but not histologic features in patients with chronic hepatitis C

Background/Aims Adiponectin induces insulin sensitivity and modulates inflammatory responses. We thus studied the implications of adiponectin in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection inherently linked to insulin resistance. Methods We analyzed the association of serum adiponectin levels with clinical, virologic, and histologic findings in 95 naı̈ve Taiwanese patients with chronic hepatitis C before and after antiviral therapy. Results At baseline, 14 (15%) of the 95 patients were obese and 26 (27%) had type 2 diabetes mellitus. Fifty-seven patients were infected with HCV genotype 1 and 38 with genotype 2. Steatosis and periportal fibrosis was present in 44 (46%) and 69 (73%), respectively. In multivariate analysis, male gender, insulin resistance, high HCV load and genotype 2 were significantly associated with a lower serum adiponectin level. In contrast, intrahepatic gene expression of adiponectin receptors was higher in genotype 2 compared with genotype 1. Serum adiponectin level did not correlate with other clinical or histologic parameters. After treatment, change of steatosis also did not correlate with the change of adiponectin level (P=0.61). Conclusions Adiponectin correlated with hepatitis C viral factors at both serum and liver tissue levels. The interactions among adiponectin, insulin resistance and chronic HCV infection merit further studies.