Validation of the Clinical Utility of Fibro Index in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C virus Infection

Introduction: Fibroindex was first described by Koda et al. as a simple, non invasive indirect marker of liver fibrosis , it was derived from the platelet count, AST, and gammaglobulin measurements. Aim of the study: evaluation of Fibro index as a predictor of clinically significant fibrosis in chronic HCV infection, and comparing its diagnostic performance to aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI). Patients and Methods: the study included 33 biopsy proven chronic HCVpatients, they were classified according to the results of histopathology into 3 groups (F0-F1), (F2-F3), (F4) , Fibroindex and APRI was calculated according to the equation described by related authors. Results: The study revealed a significant positive correlation between Fibroindex and stage of fibrosis. The areas under the ROC curves for the Fibroindex were 0.962, 0.930for predicting significant fibrosis (F2-F3) and cirrhosis (F4) respectively. Using the best cutoff values, significant fibrosis was diagnosed with higher sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values when compared with APRI. Conclusion: Fibroindex is a reliable simple noninvasive test in predicting HCV related fibrosis compared to liver biopsy.