Stiffness Value and Serum Biomarkers in Liver Fibrosis Staging: Study in Large Surgical Specimens in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B

Abstract

Purpose To investigate the capabilities of stiffness value and serum biomarkers in the staging of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), with pathologic findings in large surgical specimens serving as the reference standard. Materials and Methods This study was approved by the institutional review board, and informed consent was obtained from all patients. Liver stiffness (determined by means of ultrasonography-based elastography point quantification), aspartate aminotransferase-platelet ratio index (APRI), and fibrosis index (based on the four-factor Fibrosis-4 [FIB-4] calculation) were obtained in 386 patients with CHB. With pathologic fibrosis stages in large surgical specimens as the reference standard, capabilities and cutoffs of stiffness and serum biomarkers were first investigated in a cohort of 284 patients and then validated in an independent cohort of 102 patients by means of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) analysis. Results Liver stiffness demonstrated significantly stronger correlation with fibrosis stages than did APRI and FIB-4 (r = 0.738 vs r = 0.477 vs r = 0.427, respectively; P < .05 for all). In the development cohort, liver stiffness had significantly higher AUCs in identifying fibrosis of stage 1 or higher, stage 2 or higher, stage 3 or higher, and stage 4 or higher (0.97, 0.96, 0.91, and 0.87, respectively) than APRI (0.89, 0.84, 0.73, and 0.74, respectively) and FIB-4 (0.82, 0.79, 0.70, and 0.72, respectively). In the validation cohort, liver stiffness was validated as showing significantly higher AUCs in identifying fibrosis of stage 1 or higher, stage 2 or higher, stage 3 or higher, and stage 4 or higher (0.99, 0.95, 0.89, and 0.88, respectively) than APRI (0.83, 0.76, 0.78, and 0.68, respectively) and FIB-4 (0.76, 0.69, 0.75, and 0.67, respectively). Conclusion Liver stiffness demonstrated considerable capability in identifying each stage of liver fibrosis in patients with CHB, whereas serum biomarkers showed limited capabilities. (©) RSNA, 2016 Online supplemental material is available for this article.