Assessment of the presence of esophageal varices bleeding in patients with hepatitis B virus-related cirrhosis by a noninvasive score system / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To retrospectively analyze the diagnostic value of a noninvasive score system based on transient elastography (TE),serological test and imaging examination on esophageal variceal bleeding (EVB) in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related cirrhosis.Methods Between April 2011 and December 2012,172 patients with HBV-related cirrhosis including 120 males and 52 females who visited clinic or hospitalized at the Department of Hepatology,Tianjin Third Central Hospital,were retrospectively enrolled.The mean age was (52.9 ± 10.6) years.Patients underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy to evaluate esophageal varices (EV) and were further categorized into three stages of mild,moderate and severe according to the morphology of EV and the risk of bleeding.Liver stiffness and spleen stiffness measurement were performed using Fibroscan.Portal vein width,splenic width and spleen thickness were measured using color Doppler ultrasound.All the patients were tested for white blood cell counts and platelet counts.With endoscopy as the gold standard,receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the areas under curves (AUC) were used to assess the performance of the noninvasive score system in predicting EV by liver stiffness,spleen stiffness,portal vein width,spleen thickness and platelet counts.Student's t-test was performed to determine differences between continuous variables.Pearson's correlation was used to evaluate the association between EVB and these parameters.Results All these 172 patients underwent endoscopy.Among them,41 were EVB patients and 131 with no bleeding of EV.Among 172 EV patients,39 without EV,30 were mild EV,47 were moderate EV and 56 were severe EV.EVB was all positively correlated with liver and spleen stiffness,portal vein width,spleen thickness,splenic vein width (r=0.224,0.771,0.214,0.425 and 0.364,respectively; all P＜0.05).EVB was negatively correlated with platelet counts (r=-0.408,P=0.000).Liver stiffness,spleen stiffness,portal vein width,spleen thickness and splenic vein width in EVB patients were significantly higher than those in EV patients (P＜0.05).In contrast,platelet counts level was lower in EVB patients with difference of statistical significance (P＜0.05).AUC of non-invasive score system for EV and EVB were 0.953 and 0.882,respectively (P＜0.05).The optimal cut-off level of noninvasive score system for prediction of EV and EBV were 7 (sensitivity96 ％,specificity85 ％) in EV patients and 10 (sensitivity78％,specificity89 ％) in EVB patients.Conclusion Non-invasive score system based on liver stiffness,spleen stiffness,spleen thickness,width of splenic and portal vein and platelet counts is of clinical importance in assessing the presence of EV in patients with HBV-related cirrhosis,which is higher clinically valuable in the diagnosis for EV.