Serum fibrosis index-based risk score predicts hepatocellular carcinoma in untreated patients with chronic hepatitis B

• Published in: Clinical and molecular hepatology Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 499 - 509
• Main Authors: Lilian Yan Liang, Hye Won Lee, Vincent Wai-sun Wong, Terry Cheuk-fung Yip, Yee-kit Tse, Vicki Wing-ki Hui, Grace Chung-yan Lui, Henry Lik-yuen Chan, Grace Lai-hung Wong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 대한간학회 01.07.2021
• Subjects: Carcinoma; Chronic; Fibrosis; Hepatitis B; Hepatocellular; Surveillance
• ISSN: 2287-2728; 2287-285X

Background/Aims: Serum fibrosis scores comprised of common laboratory tests have high utility to assess severity of liver fibrosis. We aimed to derive and validate a hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk score based on serum fibrosis scores to predict HCC in treatment-naive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. Methods: Fifteen thousand one hundred eighty-seven treatment-naive adult CHB patients were identified to form the training cohort in this retrospective study. Individual fibrosis score was included to construct a new HCC prediction score. The score was externally validated in an independent treatment-naive Korean CHB cohort. Results: 180/15,187 patients (1.2%) in training cohort and 47/4,286 patients (1.1%) in validation cohort developed HCC during a mean follow-up of 52 and 50 months, respectively. The newly developed HCC risk score, Liang score, is composed of gender, age, hepatitis B virus DNA, fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index, and ranges from 0 to 22. Area under the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve of Liang score was 0.79 (95% confidence interval, 0.70-0.89). A cutoff value of nine provided an extremely high negative predictive value of 99.9% and high sensitivity of 90.0% at 5 years in the validation cohort. Patients with Liang score ≤9 had HCC incidence <0.2% per year in both training and validation cohorts, in whom HCC surveillance might be exempted. Conclusion: A novel HCC risk score, Liang score, based on FIB-4 index, is applicable and accurate to identify treatment-naive CHB patients with very low risk of HCC to be exempted from HCC surveillance. (Clin Mol Hepatol 2021;27:499-509)