Comparative Accuracy of Clinical Fibrosis Markers, Hepascore and Fibroscan® to Detect Advanced Fibrosis in Patients with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Luis C. Bertot, Gary P. Jeffrey, Bastiaan de Boer, Zhengyi Wang, Yi Huang, George Garas, Gerry MacQuillan, Michael Wallace, Briohny W. Smith, Leon A. Adams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Non-invasive tests are widely used to diagnose fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), however, the optimal method remains unclear. We compared the accuracy of simple serum models, a serum model incorporating direct measures of fibrogenesis (Hepascore), and Fibroscan®, for detecting fibrosis in NAFLD. Methods: NAFLD patients undergoing liver biopsy were evaluated with Hepascore, NAFLD Fibrosis Score (NFS), FIB-4 and AST-platelet ratio index (APRI), with a subset (n = 131) undergoing Fibroscan®. Fibrosis on liver biopsy was categorized as advanced (F3–4) or cirrhosis (F4). Accuracy was determined by area under receiving operating characteristic curves (AUC). Indeterminate ranges were calculated using published cut-offs. Results: In 271 NAFLD patients, 83 (31%) had F3–4 and 47 (17%) cirrhosis. 6/131 (4%) had an unreliable Fibroscan®. For the detection of advanced fibrosis, the accuracy of Hepascore (AUC 0.88) was higher than FIB-4 (0.73), NFS (0.72) and APRI (0.69) (p < 0.001 for all). Hepascore had similar accuracy to Fibroscan® (0.80) overall, but higher accuracy in obese individuals (0.91 vs 0.80, p = 0.001). Hepascore more accurately identified patients with cirrhosis than APRI (AUC 0.85 vs 0.71, p = 0.01) and NFS (AUC 0.73, p = 0.01) but performed similar to FIB-4 and Fibroscan®. For the determination of F3-4, the proportion of patients in indeterminate area was lower for Hepascore (4.8%), compared to FIB-4 (42%), NFS (36%) and APRI (44%) (p < 0.001 for all). Conclusions: Hepascore has greater accuracy and a lower indeterminate range than simple serum fibrosis tests for advanced fibrosis in NAFLD, and greater accuracy than Fibroscan® in obese individuals.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2757-2767
Number of pages11
JournalDigestive Diseases and Sciences
Volume68
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 2023

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