Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor And Growth Hormone In Cirrhosis Of Liver: An Open Label Study

Cirrhosis of liver is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide . Complications including ascites, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP), variceal bleed, hepatic encephalopathy, hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) and development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have poor prognosis and further decreases the survival in these patients. It has been believed that cirrhosis is irreversible and that treatment should focus on preventing the progression of liver fibrosis/dysfunction and its complications.

Currently the only effective treatment is liver transplantation, an increasingly limited and expensive resource especially in developing countries. Furthermore, transplantation comes with a requirement for lifelong immunosuppression, and considerable long-term side effects that include chronic renal failure, post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease, and cardiovascular complications.

Short of liver transplant, recently, reports of unexpected plasticity in adult bone marrow have raised hopes that stem cell therapy may offer exciting therapeutic possibilities for patients with end stage liver diseases. It has been shown that in response to acute or chronic liver damage, bone marrow derived stem cells can spontaneously populate the liver and differentiate into hepatic cells. Animal and human studies suggested that such cells might contribute to the regeneration after different kinds of liver injuries . In animal models, after liver injury, bone marrow-derived circulating pluripotent cells have been reported to participate in liver repopulation with both non-parenchymal cells and hepatocytes. This repopulation process, however, seems to be highly dependent on the type of liver injury and experimental conditions. Fusion with hematopoietic cells has been substantiated as a mechanism by which hepatocytes can regenerate, and studies have demonstrated improved liver histology and survival in patients with cirrhosis following mobilization of bone marrow stem cells by granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) . Three recent studies have demonstrated G-CSF induced mobilization of bone marrow stem cells (CD34 cells) in peripheral blood and their subsequent increase in liver tissue and improved survival in patients with alcoholic hepatitis and acute on chronic liver failure (ACLF) . However there is insufficient data on whether G-CSF improves survival and prognosis in patients with cirrhosis.

Also, Malnutrition is commonly seen (60-70%) in cirrhotics and have adverse prognosis on its outcome . The protein catabolic state of cirrhosis is associated with severe growth hormone (GH) resistance, with low levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I and its major binding protein (IGFBP)-3 . GH therapy in cirrhosis have been shown to improve nitrogen economy and to improve the GH resistance in a small pilot study. Also, GH therapy of short duration has shown to increase IGF1 levels, IGFBP-3 levels in patients of cirrhosis . GH therapy has also shown to improve liver regeneration and protein synthesis after hepatectomy in patients of HCC with cirrhosis . However there is scarcity of data on clinical impact of long term administration of GH therapy in patients of cirrhosis.