Prospective evaluation of liver fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis C infection using the Sabadell NIHCED (non-invasive hepatitis C related cirrhosis early detection) index

Introduction: liver disease resulting from chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection follows an asymptomatic course towards cir rhosis and its complications in 20-40% of cases. Earlier studies demonstrated that advanced fibrosis is a prognostic factor. The “gold standard” for the evaluation of fibrosis grade is liver biopsy. Our group validated a predictive index - NIHCED - based on de mographic, laboratory parameters, and echoghraphic data to de termine the presence of cirrhosis. Objective: our objective is to evaluate whether the NIHCED score predicts the presence of advanced fibrosis in patients with chronic HCV infection. Material and methods: this prospective study included pa tients with chronic HCV infection who underwent liver biopsy and were administered the NIHCED score. Fibrosis grade correlated with the NIHCED score using the ROC curve analysis and Spear man’s correlation coefficient. Results: in total 321 patients were included (male/female ratio 1.27) with a mean age of 48 ± 14 years. Liver biopsy showed that 131 (30.5%) had no fibrosis or had portal expansion while 190 (69.5%) had advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis. At a cut-off point of 6, sensitivity was 72%, specificity was 76.3%, positive predictive value (PPV) was 81%, negative predictive value (NPV) was 63.7%, and diagnostic accuracy was 72.5%, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.787, and a Spearman’s correlation coefficient of r = 0.65. Conclusions: the NIHCED score predicts the presence of ad vanced fibrosis in an elevated percentage of patients with a need of liver biopsy.