The clinical diagnosis value and significance of serum sH2a level on early hepatic fibrosis degree

Objective We aimed, in our prospective study, to assess the predictive value of serum non-invasive and biochemical markers for clinical diagnosis of significant fibrosis (including early stages). Methods We measured sH2a levels in serum, comparing with routine liver function markers. We compared blindly pretreatment serum samples from a cohort of hepatitis B patients without non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD), which had histological grades of liver fibrosis, with NAFLD individuals and CHB with NAFLD patients. Statistical analysis was by Student′s t test, and receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn. Results ROC curves showed that serum sH2a had greater diagnostic performance than routine liver function markers compared with histological grades of liver fibrosis(S0, S1-2, S3-4). ROC curves showed that using a sH2a cut-off point of 0.79 was with highest sensitivity as 63% and highest specificity as 80%. And sensitivity as 96.7% and specificity as 75.5% when using a sH2a cut-off point of 0.77. Conclusions sH2a has the potential to be a uniquely sensitive and specific novel marker for liver fibrosis and function. Key words: hepatitis cirrhosis; sH2a; serum level; liver tissue pathology