Pentraxin 3 Detects Clinically Significant Fibrosis in Patients with Chronic Viral Hepatitis C

Abstract EN

Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) plays a pathogenic role in experimental models of chronic liver injury and contributes to the progression of fibrosis.

The detection of advanced fibrosis (METAVIR F≥3) is important to identify patients who are in urgent need of antiviral treatments versus those whose treatment could be deferred (F≥2).

The aim was to assess the diagnostic value of PTX3 as a potential biomarker for clinically significant and advanced fibrosis.

PTX3 associations with biochemical and histological parameters of inflammatory activity and fibrosis were investigated in 138 patients with chronic viral hepatitis C (HCV) before antiviral treatment.

METAVIR histological scores of activity and fibrosis were obtained.

PTX3 was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

The diagnostic accuracy of serum PTX3 levels was compared to that of other fibrosis markers, including transforming growth factor‐β1 (TGF-β1), hyaluronic acid (HA), aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index (APRI), fibrosis score based on four factors (FIB4), gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase to platelet ratio (GPR), and the liver stiffness measurement (LSM) by transient elastography (FibroScan®).

In HCV patients the PTX3 level increased in parallel with the METAVIR histological score of activity, being independently associated with the METAVIR fibrosis score (P < 0.001).

Using the receiver operating characteristics analysis, the best marker for detecting F≥2 and F≥3 was PTX3 with AUC = 0.802 and AUC = 0.867, respectively.

The area under the curve of PTX3 for predicting significant fibrosis (F≥2) was significantly greater than those for the GPR ratio (AUC = 0.648) and FIB-4 score (AUC = 0.770) and similar to that for APRI index (AUC = 0.831).

PTX3 provided clinically relevant diagnostic accuracy as a single marker of significant fibrosis.