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.

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.