Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2019 Sep 3. doi: 10.1097/MEG.0000000000001520. [Epub ahead of print]
Fibrosis-4, aspartate transaminase-to-platelet ratio index, and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase-to-platelet ratio for risk assessment of hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic hepatitis B patients: comparison with liver biopsy.
Kim MN1, Lee JH, Chon YE, Ha Y, Hwang SG.
Author information
1
Department of Internal Medicine, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA Univesity, Seongnam, Republic of Korea.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS:
It is well known that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) develops as a consequence of hepatic fibrosis progression. Thus, early identification of advanced liver fibrosis is very important. This study evaluated the prognostic value of FIB-4, the aspartate transaminase to-platelet ratio index (APRI), and the gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase-toplatelet ratio (GPR) for predicting HCC development using histological fibrosis stage as a reference in Asian chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients.
METHODS:
A total of 444 CHB patients who underwent liver biopsy and serological tests for determining noninvasive serum fibrosis markers were enrolled. All patients were followed to monitor HCC development.
RESULTS:
The histological fibrosis stage showed best performance in predicting HCC development at 5 (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUROC] = 0.783) and 7 years (AUROC = 0.766), followed by FIB-4 (AUROC = 0.753 at 5 years, 0.698 at 7 years), APRI (AUROC = 0.658 at 5 years, 0.572 at 7 years), and GPR (AUROC = 0.638 at 5 years, 0.603 at 7 years). When we classified risk groups according to the histological fibrosis stage (F4 vs. F0-3) and FIB-4 (FIB-4 ≥ 3.25 vs. FIB-4 < 3.25), patients in the high-risk group were found to have a significantly higher probability of developing HCC than those in the low-risk group (P=0.005 and 0.022, respectively, log-rank test).
CONCLUSION:
Our study demonstrated that FIB-4 is useful for the noninvasive prediction of HCC development, while APRI and GPR were less useful.