Case of Bile Canalicular Antibody in a Korean Patient with Alcoholic Hepatitis

Soo-Hyun Kim; La-He Jearn; Think-You Kim; Ho-Soon Choi

doi:10.3343/lmo.2017.7.1.37

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Kim, Jearn, Kim, and Choi: Case of Bile Canalicular Antibody in a Korean Patient with Alcoholic Hepatitis

Original Article

Lab Med Online 2017;7(1):37-40.

Published online: 17 January 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3343/lmo.2017.7.1.37

Case of Bile Canalicular Antibody in a Korean Patient with Alcoholic Hepatitis

Soo-Hyun Kim, M.D.¹, La-He Jearn, M.D.¹, Think-You Kim, M.D.^1,, Ho-Soon Choi, M.D.²

¹Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hanyang University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

²Department of Gastroenterology, Hanyang University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding author: Think-You Kim Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hanyang University Medical Center, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Korea Tel: +82-2-2290-8980, Fax: +82-2-2290-9193, Email: tykim@hanyang.ac.kr

Received 7 March 201613 July 2016 Accepted 28 July 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Bile canalicular antibody (BCA) was first reported in 1969. Many studies of BCA were performed in the 1970s and 1980s and revealed that BCA has a highly positive rate in chronic active hepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). These studies suggested that BCA can be useful in the diagnosis of these liver diseases. However, BCA is almost negative in patients with alcoholic hepatitis. We report a case of BCA in a 50-yr-old woman with a history of heavy alcohol consumption. The patient's serum levels of aspartate transaminase and alanine transaminase were increased, leading to a diagnosis of alcoholic hepatitis. The patient was evaluated for liver disease. Anti-mitochondria antibody, anti-smooth muscle antibody, and anti-liver kidney microsomal antibody tests were conducted, yielding negative results. However, during this testing process, the patient's serum was incidentally found to be positive for BCA at a titer of 1:160. This is the first case report of BCA in Korea.

Keywords: Autoantibody, Bile canalicular antibody, Alcoholic hepatitis

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Fig. 1.

Immunofluorescent pattern of bile canalicular antibodies (BCAs) on a mouse liver section. BCAs are stained at the wall of bile canaliculi located between hepatocytes (×200, fluorescein isothiocyanate).

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