Diagnostic value of AAR and APRI for liver fibrosis in adult patients with chronic hepatitis C

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of AST/ALT ratio (AAR) and AST/PLT ratio index (APRI) for liver fibrosis in adult patients with chronic hepatitis C.Methods A total of 98 adult patients with chronic hepatitis C were retrospectively studied.All the patients underwent liver biopsy to evaluate liver fibrosis stage.AAR and APRI were compared by analyzing their correlation with liver fibrosis stage.Results AAR was significantly different between patients with stage 0 fibrosis (group S0) and those with stage 1-4 fibrosis (group S1-4) (P0.05), and it was not significantly different between patients with stage 0-1 fibrosis (group S0-1) and those with stage 2-4 fibrosis (group S2-4), patients with stage 0-2 fibrosis (group S0-2) and those with stage 3-4 fibrosis (group S3-4), patients with stage 0-3 fibrosis (group S0-3) and those with stage 4 fibrosis (group S4) (P0.05).APRI was significantly different between group S0 and S1-4, group S0-1 and S2-4, group S0-2 and S3-4, and group S0-3 and S4 (P0.05).The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the areas under curve of AAR for predicting fibrosis S1, S2-3 and S4 were less than 0.7, while those of APRI were more than 0.7.The cutoff points of APRI chosen to predict fibrosis S1, S2-3 and S4 were 0.150, 0.195 and 0.245, respectively.Conclusions APRI is more valuable than AAR for distinguishing liver fibrosis stage of adult patients with chronic hepatitis C.APRI can discriminate fibrosis S1, S2-3 and S4.