Clinical value of FibroScan for detecting liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B and effects of ALT and AST on diagnosis

Objective To investigate the clinical value of FibroScan(Echosens SA,Paris,France) for detecting liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B(CHB) and to investigate the effects of alanine aminotransferase(ALT) and asparatate aminotransferase(AST) on diagnosis.Methods Ninety CHB patients were enrolled in this study and underwent liver stiffness measurement(LSM) by FibroScan before liver biopsy.The levels of serum ALT and AST were detected via standard biochemical assays.Pathological stage of the liver fibrosis was determined by histology.Results The extent of LSM increased with increased extent of liver fibrosis,and the changes were significant between the groups(S1-S4,all P0.01).LSM was significantly positively related to the stage of liver fibrosis(Spearman correlation coefficient: 0.774,P0.01).LSM in patients with S1-S4 liver fibrosis was significantly positively related to the level of serum ALT(S1 coefficient: 0.672,P=0.000;S2 coefficient: 0.790,P=0.000;S3 coefficient: 0.845,P=0.001;and S4 coefficient: 0.797,P=0.003) and to the level of serum AST(S1 coefficient: 0.593,P=0.000;S2 coefficient: 0.762,P=0.001;S3 coefficient: 0.743,P=0.009;and S4 coefficient: 0.872,P=0.000).Conclusion FibroScan has very good clinical value for diagnosing liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B,but may be affected by the level of serum ALT and AST.