PLoS ONE (Jan 2019)

Wisteria floribunda agglutinin-positive Mac-2-binding protein in the prediction of disease severity in chronic hepatitis B patients.

  • Ming-Lun Yeh,
  • Chung-Feng Huang,
  • Ching-I Huang,
  • Chia-Yen Dai,
  • I-Hung Lin,
  • Po-Cheng Liang,
  • Meng-Hsuan Hsieh,
  • Zu-Yau Lin,
  • Shinn-Chern Chen,
  • Jee-Fu Huang,
  • Jyh-Jou Chen,
  • Ming-Lung Yu,
  • Wan-Long Chuang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220663
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 8
p. e0220663

Abstract

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BackgroundWisteria floribunda agglutinin-positive Mac-2-binding protein (WFA+-M2BP) was a novel marker of liver fibrosis. We aimed to investigate WFA+-M2BP level in assessing liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection.MethodsA total of 160 CHB patients, who received a liver biopsy, were consecutively recruited. Serum WFA+-M2BP level was quantified at the time point of biopsy. The results were compared with histopathological manifestations and clinical characteristics of the patients.ResultsThe median WFA+-M2BP level, aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio (APRI) and Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index were 1.20 COI, 1.19, and 1.63, respectively. Fifty-one (31.9%) patients had advanced fibrosis. There was a significant increase of WFA+-M2BP levels in parallel to necroinflammation/fibrosis stages. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of WFA+-M2BP level for predicting fibrosis stages were 0.780 of F2, 0.785 of F3, and 0.769 of F4, respectively (all p ConclusionWFA+-M2BP had a good performance indistinguishing liver fibrosis in CHB patients. The combination of age, platelet, and WFA+-M2BPaddressed more accuracy in identifying patients with advanced fibrosis.