Identificació de marcadors immunològics per al diagnòstic diferencial de l'hepatitis crònica autoimmune

In order to identify immunological markers specific for hepatitis of autoimmune origin and to design strategies for their differential diagnosis with hepatitis C virus-associated liver disease, we will retrospectively study a) patients with classical "lupoid" chronic active hepatitis (CAH) responding to steroids; b) patients with autoantibody-positive, steroid insensitive CAH; and c) patients with autoantibody-positive, anti-VHC positive CAH. In all cases, lymphocyte subset quantitation and functional studies (spontaneous and mitogen-induced secretion of lynphokines, IL-2, IL-6 and "alpha"-TNF, and expression of their surface specific receptors) will be performed in serial criopreserved lymphocyte samples obtained before and after immunosupressive treatment. Additionally, serial serum samples will be tested for anti-HCV with second generation ELISA and immunoblot and, when indicated, the