Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1965561 Clinica Chimica Acta 2012 4 Pages PDF
Abstract

BackgroundFibroScan is one of the noninvasive techniques based on the transient elastography that can assess the progression of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis patients in daily clinical practice. Recently, LecT-Hepa was validated as a serological glycomarker correlating well with the fibrosis stage determined by liver biopsy, and was superior to many other noninvasive biochemical markers and tests. We compared the reliability of LecT-Hepa with that of FibroScan for evaluation of liver fibrosis.MethodsThe effects of increased alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activities on LecT-Hepa and FibroScan were investigated.ResultsThe areas under the receiver-operating characteristic curves, sensitivity and specificity for detecting cirrhosis, which is one of the outcomes of fibrosis estimation, were 0.82, 72.5% and 78.2% of LecT-Hepa, 0.85, 87.0% and 74.1% of FibroScan; these did not differ significantly. The count distribution of LecT-Hepa in non-cirrhosis group or cirrhosis group did not differ between the patients grouped according to their ALT levels, whereas that of FibroScan was substantially affected.ConclusionLecT-Hepa was confirmed as a reliable noninvasive test for the evaluation of liver fibrosis in hepatitis B virus-infected patients with comparable performance to that of FibroScan and proved to be unaffected by inflammation.

► LecT-Hepa and FibroScan were compared for reliability of evaluation for liver fibrosis. ► The diagnostic performance of LecT-Hepa for detecting cirrhosis is comparable to that of FibroScan. ► LecT-Hepa was the most robust against hepatic inflammation for its steadiness upon fluctuation of the serum ALT level. ► LecT-Hepa is a reliable and effective biomarker for routine assessment of liver fibrosis.

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