Plateletcrit as a potential index for predicting liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B

Noninvasive tests (NITs) for liver fibrosis are highly needed for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. We aimed to investigate whether plateletcrit (PCT) could be used as a NIT in predicting liver fibrosis for CHB patients. Five hundred and sixty-seven treatment-naïve CHB patients with available liver biopsies were included. Patients were randomly divided into a derivation cohort (n = 378) and a validation cohort (n = 189). The diagnostic accuracy of PCT was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. In the derivation cohort, PCT in CHB patients with S2-S4 (0.14%), S3-S4 (0.13%) and S4 (0.12%) was lower than patients with S0-S1 (0.17%, P < .001), S0-S2 (0.17%, P < .001) and S0-S3 (0.16%, P < .001), respectively. PCT was an independent predictor of significant fibrosis (≥S2), advanced fibrosis (≥S3) and cirrhosis (S4). The area under the ROC curve (AUROC) of PCT in predicting significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis was 0.645, 0.709 and 0.714, respectively. The AUROC of PCT was higher than the aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index (APRI) in identifying advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis, while this was comparable with APRI in identifying significant fibrosis. The diagnostic value of PCT was comparable with fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4) in predicting significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis. In the validation cohort, PCT could also identify significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis with similar diagnostic accuracy as in the derivation cohort. PCT represents a simple and inexpensive indictor for liver fibrosis in CHB patients. PCT is just as good or better than other more complex tools for staging liver fibrosis in CHB patients.