Simple non-invasive markers as a predictor of fibrosis and viral response in chronic hepatitis C patients.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Chronic hepatitis C has a high prevalence and leads to development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver fibrosis staging is one of the main factors that influence the decision to indicate therapy for chronic hepatitis C carriers. Several simple laboratory tests, scores and indices have been proposed for the non-invasive prediction of hepatic fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C. The purpose of this study was to evaluate non-invasive liver fibrosis tests as a predictive factor of fibrosis and non-sustained viral response (relapse/non-responder) in chronic hepatitis C naive patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS We performed a retrospective case-control study with utilization of non-invasive liver fibrosis test, platelet count, aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase ratio, age-platelet index and aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index, as a predictor of non-sustained viral response in chronic hepatitis C naive patients between July 2008 and August 2010 in İzmir Atatürk Training and Research Hospital. RESULTS We observed non-invasive liver fibrosis test to be highly effective in predicting non-sustained viral response patients, especially with age-platelet index (Accuracy=73%, OR=6.93, 95% CI, 2.41-19.8). A strong relationship was shown with multivariate analysis between non-sustained viral response and some non-invasive liver fibrosis tests such as viral load (OR=4.51, 95% CI, 1.16 -17.6, p=0.03) and age-platelet index (OR=11.8, 95% CI, 2.25-62.15, p=0.004). CONCLUSIONS If non-invasive tests could be standardized according to age, gender, race, and body mass index and individualized according to the fibrosis, then a nearly full correlation of non-invasive liver fibrosis test with histologic results could be obtained, stage of fibrosis could be predicted initially, sustained viral response/non-sustained viral response could be estimated, and the need for a repeat biopsy could be eliminated.