The utility of aspartate aminotransferase/platelet ratio index in HIV/hepatitis C-co-infected patients

Abstract

Liver biopsy is currently the gold standard for determining the stage of liver fibrosis. There are risks associated with liver biopsy; therefore, surrogate markers to predict the severity of disease would be useful. We studied 50 patients with HIV/hepatitis C co-infection who had liver biopsies and determined that no patient with an aspartate aminotransferase/platelet ratio index (APRI) of 0.6 or less had stage F3 or F4 disease. The APRI is useful for excluding advanced disease in this patient population.

Correlation of transient elastography with APRI and FIB‐4 in a cohort of patients with congenital bleeding disorders and HCV or HIV/HCV coinfection

“…Prerequisite for such a strategy is a significant correlation between the results of the non-invasive markers used. In line with previous studies, our TE results showed a highly significant correlation with composite fibrosis scores such as APRI and FIB-4 [23,33].…”

Noninvasive diagnosis of liver fibrosis in patients with HIV infection and HCV/HBV co‐infection

“…The authors concluded that in patients with chronic hepatitis C, the APRI test can identify with a high degree of accuracy both significant fibrosis and cirrhosis. The APRI test has also been validated by independent groups in co-infected patients [21,[27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

“…However, improvement in their diagnostic accuracy is required before they can completely supplant liver biopsies. Prospective studies are [ [24][25][26][27][28] Type IV collagen and PIIINP Both type IV collagen and PIIINP have been found to be good predictors of fibrosis in patients with HCV although their abilities to differentiate fibrosis score 4 from fibrosis score 0-3 are inferior to HA [26,29,30] MMPs and TIMPs MMPs are proteolytic enzymes secreted by HSC and are involved in the destruction of ECM. TIMPs block this process.…”

“…Preliminary results are promising, but more data are needed for this new marker [30] ECM, extracellular matrix; PIIINP, procollagen III N terminal peptide; HA, hyaluronic acid; MMPs, matrix metalloproteinases; TIMPs, tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases.…”

Characterization of Cross-Reactive CD8 + T-Cell Recognition of HLA-A2-Restricted HIV-Gag (SLYNTVATL) and HCV-NS5b (ALYDVVSKL) Epitopes in Individuals Infected with Human Immunodeficiency and Hepatitis C Viruses

“…APRI scores have been used as a noninvasive means for estimating liver fibrosis and reportedly have high sensitivities and specificities and prognostic values similar to those of the established model of end-stage liver disease (MELD) in HCV infection, with or without HIV coinfection (1,2,12,17). Our observation that among the studied coinfected subjects the highest APRI score, which was detected for the liver belonging to the only individual with dual, cross-recognizing CD8 ϩ T cells, may suggest a negative role that the presence of these cross-reactive T cells may play in advancing HCV-related liver disease in HCV/HIV coinfection.…”