Performance of transient elastography for the staging of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B: a meta-analysis.
BACKGROUND
Transient elastography (TE), a non-invasive tool that measures liver stiffness, has been evaluated in meta-analyses for effectiveness in assessing liver fibrosis in European populations with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). However, these data cannot be extrapolated to populations in Asian countries, where chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is more prevalent. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the overall performance of TE for assessing liver fibrosis in patients with CHB.


METHODS
Studies from the literature and international conference abstracts which enrolled only patients with CHB or performed a subgroup analysis of such patients were enrolled. Combined effects were calculated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROC) and diagnostic accuracy values of each study.


RESULTS
A total of 18 studies comprising 2,772 patients were analyzed. The mean AUROCs for the diagnosis of significant fibrosis (F2), severe fibrosis (F3), and cirrhosis (F4) were 0.859 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.857-0.860), 0.887 (95% CI, 0.886-0.887), and 0.929 (95% CI, 0.928-0.929), respectively. The estimated cutoff for F2 was 7.9 (range, 6.1-11.8) kPa, with a sensitivity of 74.3% and specificity of 78.3%. For F3, the cutoff value was determined to be 8.8 (range, 8.1-9.7) kPa, with a sensitivity of 74.0% and specificity of 63.8%. The cutoff value for F4 was 11.7 (range, 7.3-17.5) kPa, with a sensitivity of 84.6% and specificity of 81.5%.


CONCLUSIONS
TE can be performed with good diagnostic accuracy for quantifying liver fibrosis in patients with CHB.
Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Young Eun
YE
Chon
Eun Hee
EH
Choi
Ki Jun
KJ
Song
Jun Yong
JY
Park
Do Young
DY
Kim
Kwang-Hyub
KH
Han
Chae Yoon
CY
Chon
Sang Hoon
SH
Ahn
Seung Up
SU
Kim
D019540:Area Under Curve; D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000502:physiology; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D008297:Male; D012372:ROC Curve; D012720:Severity of Illness Index