Objective
To investigate the value of platelet count in evaluating the degree of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
Methods
A total of 158 CHB patients who underwent liver biopsy in our hospital were included, and the clinical characteristics of these patients were retrospectively analyzed. The diagnostic values of platelet count, aspartate aminotransferase‐to‐platelet ratio index (APRI), and the fibrosis index based on four factors (FIB‐4) for significant fibrosis (
F
≥ 2) and early cirrhosis (
F
= 4) stages in CHB patients were assessed by the use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.
Results
The median (F0: 221.0; F1: 210.0; F2: 188.0; F3: 171.0; and F4: 155.5) and mean rank (F0: 120.4; F1: 100.1; F2: 82.2; F3: 67.9; and F4: 49.5) of platelet count decreased along the aggravation of fibrosis (F0‐F4). The areas under the ROC curve for the platelet count in diagnosis of significant fibrosis stage was 0.70, which had no significant difference with FIB‐4 (0.73) and APRI (0.68) in diagnostic efficacy (
P
= .428). The areas under the ROC curve of platelet count in diagnosis of early cirrhosis were 0.72, which had no significant difference with FIB‐4 (0.76) and APRI (0.68) (
P
= .094).
Conclusion
The platelet count, as a simple and non‐invasive index, could evaluate the degree of liver fibrosis in CHB individuals. At the same time, the diagnostic efficiency of platelet count to evaluate the significant liver fibrosis and early cirrhosis is comparable to FIB‐4 and APRI.
machine interactions. An ideal skin-like electrode for this purpose should be able to provide a reliable electrical current for any subtle variation of physical strains. To this goal, people have exerted considerable efforts to create various flexible conductive soft materials with desired mechanical properties, [2] healability, [3] and adhesivity. [4] In particular, the healability of an adhesive soft material is of paramount importance in providing a reliable signal in repeated and long-term services. So far, diversified healable materials are produced as flexible skin-like electrodes. [5] However, it usually takes a considerable period for the material to recover its original conductive ability. [6] This inevitably causes a break in real-time measurement or a fake sensing signal. So far, damage-resistant skin-like electrodes that always provide continuous stable signals with excellent sensitivity in the presence of damage are still not available. Proper adhesivity is another desired feature for the skin-like electrode since appropriate adhesiveness allows accurate capture of tiny muscle strains. To date, most adhesive materials are inspired by mussel byssus, which are well-known to play important roles in fixing mussels on rocks, reefs, or other hard surfaces. The strong interaction between the dopa units in the byssal protein and the solid surfaces is considered very critical Reliable human-machine interactions rely highly on a material that can provide stable real-time conductivity in the presence of unexpected damage. The closest step toward this goal is to create various self-healing materials, but the performance of the material will inevitably be interrupted during the process of healing. Herein, it is reported that damage-resistant conductivity of a skin-like polyelectrolyte film electrode can be achieved by creating hierarchical pores in analogy to those in mussel byssus. The hierarchical porous structure in mussel byssus is well-known to expel water quickly from the rock surface, but its role in recovering the ionic conductivity has been overlooked. It is shown that the ionic conductivity in the porous film remains stable as long as a small part of the film is still in contacting, owing to the fast ion transportation in the hierarchical pores. As such, the real-time conductivity does not change even if the skin-like film is cut with a knife or pieced with a needle during work. It is envisioned that the current damage-resistant ionic electrode wants to open a new vista in the design of soft conductive devices for reliable human-machine interactions.
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