Performance of Spleen Stiffness, Liver Stiffness, and their Combination for Predicting Esophageal Varices among Patient with Hepatitis B Virus-Related Cirrhosis

Background: Liver cirrhosis in Indonesia still become a burden disease, and the etiology is mostly from the hepatitis B virus. Esophageal varices (EV) is the most common complication of portal hypertension in liver cirrhosis. Due to many reasons, esophagogastroduodenoscopy is still not fully suitable for routine surveillance in daily practice. Hence, studies that work in the search for the best non-invasive test are still important for predicting EV.

Method: A total of 71 patients with liver cirrhosis due to hepatitis B who had undergone endoscopy, spleen stiffness measurement (SSM), and liver stiffness measurement (LSM), between January–April 2023 were enrolled. Diagnostic applicability was assessed by the area under the receiver-operator curve (AUC) to measure and compare the performance of each measurement and combination for predicting EV and to obtain the corresponding optimal prediction value.

Results: This study was participated by 71 subjects with liver cirrhosis. The prevalence of Child-Pugh A was 74.6% (53 patients), Child-Pugh B 22.5% (16 patients), and 2.8% (2 patients) with Child-Pugh C. Among these patients, the proportion of EV was 71.8%. This study showed that SSM with a cut-off of 38.8 kPa had AUC 0.867 (95% CI: 0.774–0.960) (sensitivity 78.4%, specificity 80%) and LSM with a cut-off of 10.55 kPa had AUC 0.822 (95% CI: 0.701–0.943) (sensitivity 88.2%, specificity 65%).

Conclusion: Spleen stiffness and liver stiffness measurements have a good performance for predicting EV in patients with liver cirrhosis caused by hepatitis B.