Diagnostic value of FibroTouch, FibroScan, and acoustic radiation force impulse for liver fibrosis in patients with primary biliary cholangitis

Objective  To investigate the diagnostic efficiency of FibroTouch, FibroScan, and acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) for liver fibrosis in patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). Methods  A retrospective analysis was performed for the patients who underwent liver biopsy and were then diagnosed with PBC in Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, from September 2014 to October 2018, and the METAVIR scoring system was used to evaluate the degree of liver fibrosis and inflammation. Within 1 week after liver biopsy, FibroTouch, FibroScan, and ARFI were used to measure liver stiffness (LS); with pathological results as the gold standard, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used to compare the value of FibroTouch, FibroScan, and ARFI in the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in PBC patients, and related influencing factors were analyzed; Youden index was used to calculate the cut-off values of LS for different degrees of liver fibrosis. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison between multiple groups, and P value corrected by the Bonferroni method was used for further comparison between two groups. A Spearman correlation analysis was performed, and a multiple linear regression model was used for multivariate analysis. Results  A total of 68 patients with PBC were enrolled in the study, among whom 13 had F0 liver fibrosis, 15 had F1 liver fibrosis, 18 had F2 liver fibrosis, 12 had F3 liver fibrosis, and 10 had F4 liver fibrosis. LS obtained by FibroTouch (FT-LS), LS obtained by FibroScan (FS-LS), and LS obtained by ARFI (ARFI-LS) were strongly positively correlated with the degree of liver fibrosis (r=0.798, 0.782, and 0.742, all P 0.05). The multivariate analysis showed that degree of liver fibrosis (β=0.399, P Conclusion  FibroTouch has similar efficiency to FibroScan and ARFI in the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in PBC patients, with relatively high diagnostic efficiency for significant liver fibrosis (F≥2) and liver cirrhosis (F=4), and therefore, it can be used as a reliable method for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in PBC patients.