title: Noninvasive diagnosis of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis C patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We aimed to derive a simple noninvasive test for liver-fibrosis staging and then estimate its performance against four simple noninvasive tests in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  CHC patients were divided into two cohorts: an estimation set (n = 324) and a validation set (n = 524). Liver fibrosis was staged according to the METAVIR scoring system. Statistical analysis was done using stepwise linear discriminant analysis and area under receiver-operating characteristic curves (AUCs).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Biotechnology Research Center (BRC) score was constructed combining several blood markers that proved useful to stage liver fibrosis. Aspartate aminotransferase /alanine aminotransferase ratio (AAR), aspartate to platelet ratio index (APRI), Fibro-α, King, and BRC scores correlated with the histological fibrosis stages with correlation coefficient 0.26, 0.36, 0.58, 0.45, and 0.73, respectively. BRC score produced AUCs 0.87, 0.83, and 0.89 for significant (F2-F4), advanced fibrosis (F3-F4), and cirrhosis (F4), respectively. These results were reproduced in the validation study with no significant difference yielding AUCs 0.85 for F2-F4, 0.82 for F3-F4, and 0.88 for F4.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  BRC score, a novel noninvasive test, is a useful and easy tool to evaluate liver fibrosis in CHC patients and seems more efficient than AAR, APRI, Fibro-α score, and King's score in this group of Egyptian patients.
authors: Research & Development Department, Biotechnology Research Center, New Damietta City, Egypt. amattallah@hotmail.com
authors: Abdelfattah M
authors: AM
authors: Attallah
authors: Mohamed
authors: M
authors: El-Far
authors: Mohamed M
authors: MM
authors: Omran
authors: Khaled
authors: K
authors: Farid
authors: Mohamed S
authors: MS
authors: Albannan
authors: Ibrahim
authors: I
authors: El-Dosoky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019540:Area Under Curve; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers