الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
HCV infect about 130–170 million people worldwide leading to significant morbidity, mortality, and financial burden on healthcare. HCV has a high tendency to induce chronic progressive liver damage in the form of hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis, or liver cancer. To date, there is no vaccine against HCV infection.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer and the fifth most common cancer worldwide. The last decade had witnessed a significant rise in the incidence of HCC with an especially high incidence reported in Egypt. A direct role of HCV in hepatocarcinogenesis had been suggested. However, it seems that cirrhosis is the common route through which several risk factors act and induce carcinogenesis.
miRNA-122 is a tissue-specific miRNA that is highly expressed in liver. miRNA-122 expression is specific to the vertebrate, where the sequence of the mature miRNA is completely conserved. miRNA-122 is a target for extensive study due to its association with cholesterol metabolism and hepatocellular carcinoma, and its important role in promoting HCV replication.
The use of non-invasive biomarkers for the diagnosis of diseases had become a rapidly growing area of clinical research. miRNAs had been proposed as possible novel biomarkers for cancer diagnosis as its expression had been studied at cellular level and in blood of HCC patients.
In the present study, we aimed to assess if the serum levels of miRNA-122 may be used.