PTX3 and chronic hepatitis C virus infection: This complies with previous studies [16–18, 30], which show close associations between PTX3 levels, disease progression, and stages of liver fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and/or alcoholic hepatitis and chronic viral hepatitis C. The results of our study further demonstrate that among ten variables, including PTX3 level, platelet count, albumin, AST, ALT, GGT, total bilirubin, INR, HA, and TGF-β1, both PTX3 and TGF-β1 (a direct fibrosis marker) were the most significant serum markers associated with severity of liver fibrosis.