Background: Chronic hepatitis C infection is common among people with history of substance use. Liver fibrosis assessment is a barrier to linkage to care, particularly among those with history of substance users. The ...Background: Chronic hepatitis C infection is common among people with history of substance use. Liver fibrosis assessment is a barrier to linkage to care, particularly among those with history of substance users. The use of non-invasive scores can be helpful in predicting liver cirrhosis in the era of HCV elimination, especially in countries where transient elastography(TE) is not available. We compared the commonly used non-invasive scores with a novel non-invasive score in predicting liver cirrhosis in this population. Methods: HCV patients with history of substance use between 2011 and 2016 were analyzed. All patients had TE for liver fibrosis assessment. Clinical performance of established non-invasive scores for fibrosis assessment and novel score were compared. Youden's index was used to determine optimal cut-off of the novel score. Results: A total of 579 patients were included. In multivariate logistic regression, cirrhosis on TE was associated with age( P = 0.002), aspartate aminotransferase(AST)( P = 0.004), and platelet count( P < 0.001), but not alanine aminotransferase(ALT)( P = 0.896). These form the components of modified AST-toplatelet ratio index(APRI) score. Modified APRI was superior to APRI in predicting cirrhosis(AUROC, 0.796 vs. 0.770, P = 0.007), but not fibrosis-4 score(FIB-4)( P = 1.00). Modified APRI at cut-off of 4 has sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value(NPV) of 94.4%, 26.9% and 92.6%, respectively, and at 19, has sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value(PPV) of 33.3%, 96.2% and 77.1%, respectively. FIB-4 has a NPV and PPV of 88.6%, 41.8% and 78.5%, 77.6%, at cut-off of 1.45 and 3.25, respectively. Using the cut-off of 4 and 14 for modified APRI, 32.5% of patients can be correctly classified and misses out only 5.6% of cirrhosis patients. Conclusions: Modified APRI score is superior in predicting cirrhosis in HCV population, with 32.5% of the population being correctly classified using cut-off of 4 and 14. Further studies are required to validate the findings.展开更多
文摘Background: Chronic hepatitis C infection is common among people with history of substance use. Liver fibrosis assessment is a barrier to linkage to care, particularly among those with history of substance users. The use of non-invasive scores can be helpful in predicting liver cirrhosis in the era of HCV elimination, especially in countries where transient elastography(TE) is not available. We compared the commonly used non-invasive scores with a novel non-invasive score in predicting liver cirrhosis in this population. Methods: HCV patients with history of substance use between 2011 and 2016 were analyzed. All patients had TE for liver fibrosis assessment. Clinical performance of established non-invasive scores for fibrosis assessment and novel score were compared. Youden's index was used to determine optimal cut-off of the novel score. Results: A total of 579 patients were included. In multivariate logistic regression, cirrhosis on TE was associated with age( P = 0.002), aspartate aminotransferase(AST)( P = 0.004), and platelet count( P < 0.001), but not alanine aminotransferase(ALT)( P = 0.896). These form the components of modified AST-toplatelet ratio index(APRI) score. Modified APRI was superior to APRI in predicting cirrhosis(AUROC, 0.796 vs. 0.770, P = 0.007), but not fibrosis-4 score(FIB-4)( P = 1.00). Modified APRI at cut-off of 4 has sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value(NPV) of 94.4%, 26.9% and 92.6%, respectively, and at 19, has sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value(PPV) of 33.3%, 96.2% and 77.1%, respectively. FIB-4 has a NPV and PPV of 88.6%, 41.8% and 78.5%, 77.6%, at cut-off of 1.45 and 3.25, respectively. Using the cut-off of 4 and 14 for modified APRI, 32.5% of patients can be correctly classified and misses out only 5.6% of cirrhosis patients. Conclusions: Modified APRI score is superior in predicting cirrhosis in HCV population, with 32.5% of the population being correctly classified using cut-off of 4 and 14. Further studies are required to validate the findings.
