title: Diagnostic usefulness of real-time elastography for liver fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis B and C.
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic usefulness of real-time elastography (RTE) for liver fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis B (CHB) and C (CHC). Fifty-one and thirty-two of the patients were diagnosed with CHB and CHC, respectively. Enrolled patients underwent liver biopsy and RTE. The FIB-4 index and aspartate transaminase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) were also measured. The liver fibrosis index (LFI) by RTE increased significantly with the Knodell fibrosis stage: 3.14 ± 0.62 for F0, 3.28  ±  0.42 for F1, 3.43  ±  0.53 for F3, and 4.09  ±  1.03 for F4 (P = 0.000). LFI as well as APRI, FIB-4, platelet, albumin, and prothrombin time showed the difference in patients with advanced fibrosis (≥F3) and those with mild fibrosis (≤F1). In addition, RTE had better discrimination power between ≥F3 and F4 than between FIB-4 and APRI. In CHC patients, the area under receiver operating characteristic curves of RTE for advanced fibrosis was higher than that in CHB patients (0.795 versus 0.641). RTE is useful for the assessment of advanced fibrosis in patients with CHB and CHC and has better discrimination power than other serologic markers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Young Woon
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jung Hyun
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jeong Won
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3255-8474
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Min Ju
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Byong Sun
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kyu Won
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun Su
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon 403-720, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Soon Woo
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5562-4775
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Nam