Meta-analyses of FibroTest diagnostic value in chronic liver disease

Abstract

Background: FibroTest (FT) is a biomarker of liver fibrosis initially validated in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC).

Diagnosis and Quantitation of Fibrosis

“…However, a recent metaanalysis found that FibroTest is effective in the evaluation of hepatic fibrosis in chronic HCV and chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV), alcoholic liver disease, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); and the authors concluded that FibroTest is, in fact, an effective alternative to liver biopsy. 68 A paper by Sebastiani et al demonstrated simple stepwise algorithms to identify significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in a validation set of 100 patients with HCV following a training set of 190 patients. They evaluated APRI, followed by FibroTest and then liver biopsy if necessary.…”

Diagnostic and prognostic values of noninvasive biomarkers of fibrosis in patients with alcoholic liver disease

“…4 We later modified it to include ␣-2 mac-roglobulin (the PGAA index). 5 A second generation panel is the "FibroTest" that combines ␣-2 macroglobulin, haptoglobin, GGT, apolipoprotein A1, and total bilirubin corrected for age and gender, and which has shown high predictive values for significant fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C, B, nonfatty liver disease, 6,7 and in patients with chronic ALD. 8,9 Hepascore combines bilirubin, GGT, hyaluronic acid, ␣-2 macroglobulin, age, and gender.…”

Non-Invasive Index for Predicting Significant Liver Fibrosis: Comparison of Diagnostic Performances in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B and C

“…Although the Fibrotest was originally derived from CHC patients, it achieved a similar degree of diagnostic accuracy. In another recent meta-analysis, which pooled 6,378 subjects with both the FibroTest and biopsy, the mean standardized AUROC for diagnosing significant fibrosis was 0.84 (95% CI, 0.83-0.86), without differences between CHC (0.85; 95% CI, 0.82-0.87) and CHB patients (0.80; 95% CI, 0.77-0.84) [25]. Further studies are needed to clarify the differences in the characteristics of fibrosis patterns between CHB and CHC patients.…”

“…The power of the SF index is strengthened by the fact that the diagnostic performance is improved when using scores in combination, especially direct and indirect fibrosis markers. The GGT, a2MG, and haptoglobin are parameters included in Fibrotest and repeatedly validated as indirect fibrosis markers [10,13,24,25]. Furthermore, MMP2 and TIMP1 have also been frequently reported as useful direct markers [11,26].…”