On-treatment changes in FIB-4 and 1-year FIB-4 values help identify patients with chronic hepatitis B receiving entecavir therapy who have the lowest risk of hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Noninvasive fibrosis indices can help stratify the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) receiving nucleos(t)ide analogue (NA) therapy. We investigated the predictive performance of on-treatment changes in FIB-4 (ΔFIB-4) and 1-year FIB-4 values (FIB-4 12M) forHCCrisk in patients withCHBreceiving entecavir therapy. We included 1325 NA-naïve patients with CHB treated with entecavir, retrospectively, from January 2007 to August 2012. A combination of ΔFIB-4 and FIB-4 12M was used to stratify the cumulative risk of HCC into three subgroups each in the noncirrhotic and cirrhotic subgroups with p < 0.0001 by using the log-rank test (noncirrhotic: the highest risk (n = 88): FIB-4 12M ≥ 1.58/ΔFIB-4 ≥ 0 (hazard ratio (HR): 40.35; 95% confidence interval (CI): 5.107-318.7; p <0.0001) and cirrhotic: the highest risk (n = 89): FIB-4 12M ≥2.88/ΔFIB-4 ≥0 (HR: 9.576; 95% CI: 5.033-18.22; p < 0.0001)). Patients with noncirrhotic CHB treated with entecavir who had a FIB-4 12M < 1.58 or FIB-4 12M ≥ 1.58/ΔFIB-4 < 0 exhibited the lowest 5-year HCC risk (0.6%). A combination of on-treatment changes in FIB-4 and 1-year FIB-4 values may help identify patients with CHB receiving entecavir therapy with the lowest risk of HCC.