الفهرس 
Anatomy of the liverOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Approximately 30% of patients with chronic hepatitis C have normal serum alanine transaminase (ALT) levels ; most patients with normal ALT levels have mild degrees of inflammation with mild or no fibrosis, and the rate of disease progression is reduced compared with that in patients with elevated ALT levels.
Some patients with normal ALT levels have advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis on liver biopsy (Bruce 2002).
The progression of fibrosis is difficult to predict in the individual patient particularly based on assessment at one point in time.
Serial serum ALT levels, grade of activity, and stage of fibrosis are the main predictors of progression fibrosis.
However, the overall predictive value of these characteristics is relatively weak and the progression of fibrosis is difficult to predict in the individual patient.
The liver biopsy remains the best method to assess fibrosis and is valuable in determining prognosis and aiding in the decision for or against therapy (Marcellin et al, 2002).
The aim of this work is to study the histopathological characterization of anti- HCV positive subjects with persistently normal aminotransferase levels in comparison with that of patients having elevated aminotransferase levels.