Background: Adiponectin is a protein hormone secreted by adipose tissue. There is no data about the secretion of adiponectin during hepatitis C infection; some studies revealed that hyperadiponectinemia found with chronic HCV infection is significantly associated with the development of liver fibrosis. Nonetheless, the action of adiponectin in chronic HCV infection is still controversial.

Objective: measurement of the serum adiponectin as a biochemical marker of liver fibrosis in hepatitis C patients.

Subjects and Methods: The present study was conducted on sixty patients suffering from chronic hepatitis C and twenty eight healthy volunteers served as controls.

Results: The significant finding of this study is that chronic HCV patients have increased circulating adiponectin levels than healthy controls (9.16 ± 6.72 for HCV vs. 4.12 ± 1.78 for control, p <0.05) and it can be used as a biochemical marker for grade 4 fibrosis in metavir score which indicate cirrhosis while no significant difference between non cirrhotic grades and control group, also, adiponectin correlates positively with grade of fibrosis.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that hyperadiponectinaemia in HCV-infected patients correlate with hepatic fibrosis and it can be used as a biochemical marker for grade 4 fibrosis in metavir score which indicates cirrhosis.