Noninvasive inflammatory markers for assessing liver fibrosis stage in autoimmune hepatitis patients

OBJECTIVE: To examine the accuracy of noninvasive inflammatory markers in predicting liver fibrosis stage in patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We enrolled 55 patients with AIH and 60 healthy controls in this study, and divided them into three groups: F0 (control); F1–F3 (noncirrhotic fibrosis); and F4 (cirrhosis). The following markers were analyzed for all participants: lymphocyte-to-neutrophil ratio (LNR); lymphocyte-to-platelet ratio (LPR); lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR); immunoglobulin-to-platelet ratio (IGPR); aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI); aspartate aminotransferase-to-alanine aminotransferase ratio (AAR); and fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4). The predictive accuracy of these noninvasive markers was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Multivariate ordinal logistic regression models were used to analyze associations between the noninvasive markers and liver fibrosis stage. RESULTS: AAR, LPR, LMR, IGPR, APRI, and FIB-4 were linked to liver fibrosis-stage (P < 0.05), with correlation indices of − 0.219, 0.258, − 0.149, 0.647, 0.841, and 0.704, respectively, but not LNR (P = 0.093). area under the receiver operating characteristic curves of LPR, IGPR, AAR, LMR, APRI, and FIB-4 for detecting cirrhosis (F4 vs. F0–F3) were 0.936 (95% confidence interval: 0.870–1.000, P < 0.001), 0.939 (0.875–1.000, P < 0.001), 0.528 (0.319–0.738, P = 0.768), 0.555 (0.409–0.700, P = 0.568), 0.798 (0.694–0.902, P = 0.002), and 0.881 (0.796–0.967, P < 0.001). Our multivariate ordinal regression analysis showed that LPR and IGPR were associated independently with liver fibrosis stage, with a coefficient of 0.385 (95% confidence interval: 0.103–0.667, P = 0.007) and 14.903 (2.091–27.786, P = 0.023), respectively. CONCLUSION: LPR and IGPR were associated independently with liver fibrosis stage in treatment-naive AIH, and were superior to APRI and FIB-4 in detecting cirrhosis.