Serum hyaluronan as a possible biomarker of liver insufficiency in cirrhotic patients.

Hepatic hyaluronan is a glycosaminoglycan synthesised in the liver mainly by mesenchymal cells and degraded by liver sinusoidal endothelial cells. Serum hyaluronan was measured, using enzyme-linked binding protein assay (Chugai, Japan) in 30 patients with cirrhosis of different etiologies (alcohol n = 15, primary biliary cirrhosis n = 4, hepatitis B n = 5, hepatitis C n = 6). Hyaluronan levels were significantly higher in patients with liver cirrhosis (398 +/- 375.4 ng/ml) than in the controls (36.5 +/- 26.9 ng/ml). There was no significant difference in hialuronan levels between the different etiologies of the disease. Hyaluronan level increased proportionally to the severity of cirrhosis.