Value of the combined use of aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index and total bile acid for predicting parenteral nutrition-associated cholestasis in preterm infants with gestational age <34 weeks / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To explore the value of the combined use of aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) and total bile acid (TBA) for predicting parenteral nutrition-associated cholestasis (PNAC) in preterm infants with gestational age <34 weeks.@*METHODS@#A retrospective analysis was performed on medical data of 270 preterm infants born at <34 weeks of gestation who received parenteral nutrition (PN) during hospitalization in the First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College from January 2019 to September 2022, including 128 infants with PNAC and 142 infants without PNAC. The medical data between the two groups were compared, and predictive factors for the development of PNAC were explored through multivariate logistic regression analysis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the value of APRI alone, TBA alone, and the combination of both for predicting PNAC.@*RESULTS@#TBA levels in the PNAC group after 1, 2, and 3 weeks of PN were higher than those in the non-PNAC group (P<0.05). APRI in the PNAC group after 2 and 3 weeks of PN was higher than that in the non-PNAC group (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that elevated APRI and TBA after 2 weeks of PN were predictive factors for PNAC in preterm infants (P<0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) for predicting PNAC by combining APRI and TBA after 2 weeks of PN were 0.703, 0.803, and 0.806, respectively. The AUC for predicting PNAC by combining APRI and TBA was higher than that of APRI or TBA alone (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#After 2 weeks of PN, the value of combining APRI and TBA for predicting PNAC is high in preterm infants with gestational age <34 weeks.

The value of Fib4 and APRI in predicting liver failure after hepatectomy in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma / 中华肝胆外科杂志

Objective:To evaluate the value of preoperative aspartate aminotransferaseto platelet ratio index (APRI) and fibrosis index 4 (Fib4) in predicting posthepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) of primary hepatocellular carcinoma.Methods:The data of 587 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University from January 2014 to January 2020 were retrospectively collected and analyzed, including 412 males and 175 females, aged (56.8±11.2) years. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to analyze the influencing factors of PHLF. The ability of Child-Pugh score, model for end-stage liver diseas (MELD) score, APRI and Fib4 to predict PHLF was evaluated through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of subjects.Results:Among 587 patients, 186 (31.7%) had liver failure after hepatectomy. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, APRI ( OR=2.660, 95% CI: 1.314-5.384, P=0.007) and Fib4 ( OR=1.322, 95% CI: 1.157-1.511, P<0.001) were risk factors for PHLF in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. The higher the number, the greater the risk of PHLF. The predicted area under the ROC curve of PHLF in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma was Fib4(0.719)>APRI(0.686)>MELD score(0.618)>Child-Pugh score(0.565). Conclusion:APRI and Fib4 were risk factors of PHLF in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. They predict the occurrence of PHLF better than Child-Pugh score and MELD score.

Study on the diagnostic value of transient elastography, APRI and FIB-4 for liver fibrosis in children with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease / 中华肝脏病杂志

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic value of transient elastography, aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI), and fibrosis index based on 4 factors (FIB-4) for liver fibrosis in children with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 100 cases of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in Hunan Children's Hospital between August 2015 to October 2020 to collect liver tissue pathological and clinical data. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve) was used to analyze the diagnostic value of liver stiffness measurement (LSM), APRI and FIB-4 in the diagnosis of different stages of liver fibrosis caused by NAFLD in children. Results: The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of LSM, APRI and FIB-4 for diagnosing liver fibrosis (S≥1) were 0.701 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.579 ~ 0.822, P = 0.011], 0.606 (95%CI: 0.436 ~ 0.775, P = 0.182), and 0.568 (95%CI: 0.397 ~ 0.740, P = 0.387), respectively. The best cut-off values were 6.65 kPa, 21.20, and 0.18, respectively. The AUCs value of LSM, APRI, and FIB-4 for diagnosing significant liver fibrosis (S≥ 2) were 0.660 (95% CI: 0.552 ~ 0.768, P = 0.006), 0.578 (95% CI: 0.464 ~ 0.691, P = 0.182) and 0.541 (95% CI: 0.427 ~ 0.655, P = 0.482), respectively. The best cut-off values were 7.35kpa, 24.78 and 0.22, respectively. The AUCs value of LSM, APRI and FIB-4 for the diagnosis of advanced liver fibrosis (S≥ 3) were 0.639 (95% CI: 0.446 ~ 0.832, P = 0.134), 0.613 (95% CI: 0.447 ~ 0.779, P = 0.223) and 0.587 (95% CI: 0.411 ~ 0.764, P = 0.346), respectively. The best cut-off values were 8.55kpa, 26.66 and 0.27, respectively. Conclusion: The transient elastography technique has a better diagnostic value than APRI and FIB-4 for liver fibrosis in children with NAFLD.

Role of acoustic radiation force impulse elastography, aminotransferase to platelet ratio index and fibrotest for the assessment of significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in chronic liver disease

Background: Accurate grading of hepatic fibrosis is important for the application of appropriate intervening strategy. Liver biopsy is the golden standard of fibrotic grading, however wide clinical application is hindered by its inherent drawbacks. Biomechanical-based ultrasonic elastography has received mass attention. However, several clinical studies found that the sole application of ultrasonic elastography may bring evident errors in diagnosing hepatic fibrosis. It is suggested that a combination of ultrasonic elastography and serum liver functions tests holds the potential to overcome those disadvantages. Aims and objectives was to study the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasonography elastography, APRI, fibrotest for significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with chronic liver disease and established the correlation between ARFI elastography, APRI, Fibrotest in grading of liver fibrosisMethods: Sixty three patients with chronic liver disease were studied.  Liver stiffness was evaluated with ARFI elastography. Histologic staging of liver fibrosis served as the reference standard except a very few cirrhotic patients who were graded as cirrhotic on the basis of clinical examination. The required APRI, Fibrotest parameters and relevant clinical history was recorded.  Fibrosis stage was assessed according to the METAVIR classification.Results: ARFI, APRI, and Fibrotest demonstrated a significant correlation with the histological stage. According to ARFI and APRI for evaluating fibrotic stages more than F2, ARFI showed an enhanced diagnostic accuracy than APRI. The combined measurement of ARFI and APRI exhibited better accuracy than ARFI alone when evaluating ≥ F2 fibrotic stage that showed  significant concordance  i.e. 79.3% cases,  out of which 69.8% of total cases were correctly diagnosed on comparison with the gold standard. Fibrotest and ARFI elastography show significant concordance in grading of fibrosis i.e. 82.5%. Cases out of which 68.3% of total cases were correctly diagnosed on comparison with the gold standard.Conclusions: APRI, ARFI, and fibrotest are novel tools among non-invasive modalities to rule out significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with chronic liver disease. ARFI with APRI and ARFI with fibrotest showed enhanced diagnostic accuracy than ARFI or APRI or fibrotest alone for significant liver fibrosis.

Characteristics of treatment-naïve HBV-infected individuals with HIV-1 coinfection: A cross-sectional study from South India

Purpose: Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) coinfection has become a major health problem across the globe. The increased life expectancy of HIV-1 patients due to antiretroviral therapy has led to the emergence of liver disease as a major mortality factor among them. The purpose of the study was to examine the baseline characteristics of HBV in treatment-naïve HBV/HIV coinfection from southern India compared to monoinfected individuals. Materials and Methods: The study was cross sectional in design, and samples were examined from 80 HIV-1, 70 HBV and 35 HBV/HIV-coinfected individuals using chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay, real-time polymerase chain reaction and flow cytometry assays. Results: There was a significant increase in HBV DNA (P = 0.0001), higher hepatitis B e antigen percentage difference (P = 0.027) and lower CD4 counts (P = 0.01) among the HBV/HIV-coinfected individuals, but no difference in the HIV-1 viral load compared to HIV-1-monoinfected individuals. Also, the aspartate aminotransferase levels, prothrombin time and the international normalised ratio were significantly high among coinfected individuals. Conclusion: These findings conclude that HIV-1 coinfection can have serious implications on the outcome of HBV-related liver disease. To the contrary, HBV infection had no consequence on the progression of HIV-1 disease but distinctly lowered CD4+ T-cells.

Detection and clinical significance of APRI and FIB-4 in patients with chronic HBV infection / 中国综合临床

Objective To detect the changes of aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index ( APRI) and fibrosis index based on the four factors (FIB-4) in patients with chronic HBV infection,and to analyze and evaluate the status of liver function,and explore the clinical significance in order to find a simple non-invasive diagnostic method for liver fibrosis. Methods From January 2016 to June 2017, a clinical controlled study was conducted to select one hundred and twenty patients with chronic HBV infection in outpatient and inpatient clinics of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Medical College of Qingdao University. They were divided into three groups: HBV carriers,chronic hepatitis B patients and hepatitis B cirrhosis patients. Serum total bilirubin,albumin,alanine aminotransferase (ALT),aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and platelet levels were measured. According to the formula, the values of APRI and FIB-4 were calculated,and the numerical changes of APRI and FIB-4 in patients with different types of chronic HBV infection were studied. The correlation between total bilirubin and albumin was analyzed. At the same time,30 healthy persons were selected as healthy control group for clinical analysis. Results The APRI values of patients with chronic HBV infection and healthy control group were ( 1. 17 ± 0. 71) and ( 0. 50 ± 0. 23), respectively. The FIB-4 values of patients with chronic HBV infection and healthy control group were (1. 90± 0. 84) and (1. 08±0. 58),respectively. The differences were statistically significant (P＜0. 01). The APRI values of HBV carriers group,chronic hepatitis B group and hepatitis B cirrhosis group were(0. 53±0. 22), (1. 14± 0. 61) and ( 1. 84 ± 0. 49) . The values of FIB-4 were ( 1. 22 ± 0. 54),( 1. 85 ± 0. 48) and ( 2. 64 ±0. 77) respectively. The values of APRI and FIB-4 of chronic HBV infection patients in each group increased with the increase of liver fibrosis, and there was significant difference between the groups ( P＜0. 01). The results showed that hepatitis B cirrhosis grouP＞chronic hepatitis B grouP＞HBV carrier grouP＞healthy control group. There were significant differences between hepatitis B group and healthy control group,hepatitis B cirrhosis group and HBV carrier group,chronic hepatitis B group and HBV carrier group (P＜0. 01). There was no significant difference between HBV carriers and healthy controls (P＞0. 05). The results of correlation analysis showed that there was a positive correlation among APRI, FIB-4 and total bilirubin (P＜0. 01) and a negative correlation with albumin ( P＜0. 01) in patients with chronic HBV infection. Conclusion The changes of APRI and FIB-4 values in patients with chronic HBV infection have diagnostic value for liver fibrosis in different clinical infection states can reflect the liver function status of patients,and help judge the severity and prognosis of patients with chronic HBV infection.

Clinical value of preoperative aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index in predicting liver failure after hepatectomy for primary liver cancer / 第二军医大学学报

Objective To explore the predictive value of preoperative aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) for post-hepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) after hepatectomy in the patients with primary liver cancer (PLC). Methods A retrospective study was conducted on the data from the PLC patients who underwent first hepatectomy in Tumor Hospital Affiliated to Guangxi Medical University between Sep. 2013 and Dec. 2016. The logistic regression model and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were performed to determine the predicting values of APRI, Child-Pugh score, model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score and albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score for PHLF. Results A total of 1 108 PLC patients were included in this study, and PHLF occurred in 217 (19.58%) patients. The logistic regression analysis showed that Child-Pugh score, MELD score, ALBI score and APRI were predicting factors for PHLF (all P0.05). The ROC curve analysis showed that preoperative APRI (area under curve [AUC]: 0.745, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.709-0.781, P0.001) was significantly better for predicting PHLF compared with Child-Pugh score (AUC 0.561, 95% CI 0.516-0.605, P＝0.005), MELD score (AUC 0.650, 95% CI 0.610-0.691, P0.001) and ALBI score (AUC 0.662, 95% CI 0.621-0.703, P0.001). Based on Youden index, the best cut-off value of preoperative APRI was 0.55 for predicting PHLF in PLC patients, with a sensitivity of 71.9% and a specificity of 68.5%, and the patients with APRI0.55 had significantly higher overall incidence of PHLF, and higher incidence of PHLF A, B and C compared with ones with APRI≤0.55 (all P0.05). Conclusion Preoperative APRI is more accurate for predicting PHLF after hepatectomy in PLC patients versus the Child-Pugh, MELD and ALBI scores, providing guiding significance for clinical treatment of PLC.

Status of liver fibrosis evaluated by aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease / 中华全科医师杂志

Objective To evaluate the prevalence and risk factors of progressive liver fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).Methods A total of 2 054 subjects who underwent health check up and were diagnosed as NAFLD in 9 institutions were included in the study.Blood routine and biochemical findings were collected to calculate aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI).Subjects were divided into three groups according to diagnostic threshold of liver fibrosis:APRI ＜0.43 group,APRI 0.43-0.53 group and APRI ≥ 0.54 group.The correlation between APRI and biochemical variables was analyzed,and the risk factors of progressive fibrosis were also analyzed.Results Among 2 054 subjects (male/female 1 598/456) there were 61 cases with APRI ≥ 0.98 (2.97％,progressive fibrosis),318 with APRI ≥0.54 (15.48％),1 475 with APRI ＜ 0.43 (71.81％),261 with APRI 0.43-0.53 (12.71％).Logistic stepwise regression analysis showed that TG (P =0.002,OR =1.095,95％CI:1.033-1.161),2 hPG(P =0.000,OR =1.103,95％ CI:1.058-1.151,BUN(P =0.034,OR =1.215,95 ％ CI:1.014-1.454) were risk factors,and H DL-C (P =0.034,OR =0.353,95 ％ CI:O.135-0.924) was a protective factor for the progression of fibrosis.Conclusion The progressive fibrosis in patients with NAFLD is closely associated to blood glucose and lipid metabolism disorder.

Prediction of the Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients after Sustained Virological Response by Aspartate Aminotransferase to Platelet Ratio Index

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Following sustained virological response (SVR) for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection, patients with advanced fibrosis require regular monitoring for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI) is a simple noninvasive surrogate marker known to reflect fibrosis. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 598 patients who achieved SVR with interferon-based therapy for CHC. RESULTS: Over a median of 5.1 years of follow-up, there were eight patients diagnosed with HCC and a 5-year cumulative incidence rate of 1.3%. The median pretreatment APRI was 0.83, which decreased to 0.29 after achieving SVR (p<0.001). Both the pre- and posttreatment indices were associated with HCC development. The 5-year cumulative HCC incidence rates were 0% and 2.8% for patients with pretreatment APRI <1.0 and ≥1.0, respectively (p=0.001) and 0.8% and 12.8% for patients with posttreatment APRI <1.0 and ≥1.0, respectively (p<0.001). Pretreatment APRI at a cutoff of 1.0 had a 100% negative predictive value until 10 years after SVR. CONCLUSIONS: HCC development was observed among CHC patients who achieved SVR. The pre- and post-treatment APRI could stratify HCC risk, indicating that the APRI could be a useful marker to classify HCC risk in CHC patients who achieved SVR. However, given the small number of HCC patients, this finding warrants further validation.