Diminished accuracy of biomarkers of fibrosis in low replicative chronic hepatitis B

Abstract

Abstract Background We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of aspartate aminotransferase (AST)-to-platelet ratio index (APRI), fibrosis-4 index (FIB-4), AST/alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ratio (AAR), and age-platelet index (API) for significant fibrosis (Metavir F2–4) in low-replicative (HBV DNA 0.05) for identifying F2–4 fibrosis in low and high-replicative patients. Higher specificities were seen at the lowest cut-offs in low vs. high-replicative states for APRI (≥0.5, 98% vs. 68.9%), AAR (84.3% vs. 76.6%), FIB-4 (≥1.45, 97.5% vs. 87.8%) and API (>4, 94.8% vs. 93.8%). At ROC-defined thresholds, APRI (≥0.33), AAR (≥0.93), FIB-4 (≥0.70) and API (>2) showed greater AUROCs for F2–4 diagnosis in low replicative (0.80, 0.62, 0.81 and 0.71, respectively) vs. high-replicative patients (0.73, 0.52, 0.67 and 0.69, respectively). Conclusion All 4 biomarkers in both, low and high-replicative HBV demonstrate modest accuracy for fibrosis diagnosis at conventional cut-offs. Lowering the cut-offs may increase the diagnostic relevance of these biomarkers, particularly for APRI and FIB-4 in low-replicative disease.

Keywords

• Hepatitis B
• Fibrosis
• Biomarkers
• APRI