Commentary on: Aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index (APRI): A simple noninvasive index assessing liver fibrosis in patients with chronic liver diseases

Hepatitis Monthly has recently published an interesting and practically valuable original report from Yilmaz, et al. (1). That was a retrospective study investigating the ability of the aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index (APRI) in diagnosing and predicting the extent of fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), chronic hepatitis C (CHC), and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This relatively large scale study was conducted on a cohort of 207 CHB patients, 108 CHC patients, and 140 NAFLD patients. The results of that study were apparently reliable and potentially useful with clinical significance. The authors, by comparing with the results from liver biopsy, concluded that APRI has an acceptable accuracy for the assessment of the extent of liver fibrosis in patients with CHC and NAFLD, but not in those with CHB.