부산대학교 도서관

Background The accuracy of available non-invasive tools for staging severe fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease ( NAFLD) is still limited. Aim To assess the diagnostic performance of paired or serial combination of non-invasive tools in NAFLD patients. Methods We analysed data from 741 patients with a histological diagnosis of NAFLD. The GGT/ PLT, APRI, AST/ ALT, BARD, FIB-4, and NAFLD Fibrosis Score ( NFS) scores were calculated according to published algorithms. Liver stiffness measurement ( LSM) was performed by FibroScan. Results LSM, NFS and FIB-4 were the best non-invasive tools for staging F3-F4 fibrosis ( AUC 0.863, 0.774, and 0.792, respectively), with LSM having the highest sensitivity (90%), and the highest NPV (94%), and NFS and FIB-4 the highest specificity (97% and 93%, respectively), and the highest PPV (73% and 79%, respectively). The paired combination of LSM or NFS with FIB-4 strongly reduced the likelihood of wrongly classified patients (ranging from 2.7% to 2.6%), at the price of a high uncertainty area (ranging from 54.1% to 58.2%), and of a low overall accuracy (ranging from 43% to 39.1%). The serial combination with the second test used in patients in the grey area of the first test and in those with high LSM values (>9.6 KPa) or low NFS or FIB-4 values (<−1.455 and <1.30, respectively) overall increased the diagnostic performance generating an accuracy ranging from 69.8% to 70.1%, an uncertainty area ranging from 18.9% to 20.4% and a rate of wrong classification ranging from 9.2% to 11.3%. Conclusion The serial combination of LSM with FIB-4/ NFS has a good diagnostic accuracy for the non-invasive diagnosis of severe fibrosis in NAFLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]