Evaluation of hepatic fibrosis by elastography in patients with schistosomiasis mansoni

Periportal fibrosis is associated with the main complications of schistosomiasis mansoni. The usefulness of hepatic transient elastography (TE) in its evaluation remains to be clarified.

We conducted a cross-sectional study of schistosomal patients, where the measurements obtained by FibroScan TE were correlated with the degree of liver fibrosis according to the Niamey sonographic protocol, adopted as the gold standard, and its performance was calculated as the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC).

A total of 117 of 141 adult schistosomiasis patients from endemic areas were selected between May and August 2015. Applying the Niamey protocol, the patients were regrouped into absent fibrosis (A; 34.2%), mild to moderate fibrosis (MM; 27.4%) and intense fibrosis (I; 38.5%). The median of the TE values in the patients of group A was 4.7 kPa, the group MM 9.3 kPa and the group I 10.3 kPa. There was a difference in the TE values between the group A and the groups MM and I (p < 0.05). The TE also presented strong and direct correlation with the clinical form (r ≥ 0.77). The AUROC value to define the presence of fibrosis was 0.92 and for significant fibrosis was 0.79, with cut-offs of 6.1 kPa and 8.9 kPa, respectively.

In this study, the TE was effective in the diagnosis of schistosomal fibrosis, being able to identify the advanced forms of the disease and thus predict the risk of clinical complications in endemic regions.