Accuracy comparison of MR elastography and biological markers in detecting liver fibrosis and predicting postoperative ascites.

Abstract Background This retrospective study aimed to compare the discriminative performance between magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and biological markers in detecting liver fibrosis and in predicting postoperative ascites (PA). Methods We enrolled 77 patients consecutively who underwent hepatectomy between March 2017 and June 2019. Liver fibrosis was histopathologically graded using the METAVIR scoring system as reference. Discriminative performance of non-invasive assessments (NIAs) in detecting different stages of liver fibrosis and predicting PA was evaluated by receiver–operator curve (ROC) analysis. Results The concordance indices (C-indices) for MRE and biological markers for detecting significant fibrosis (≥F2) and cirrhosis (F4) were: MRE, 0.84 and 0.86; Wisteria floribunda agglutinin + Mac-2 binding protein (WM2BP), 0.63 and 0.71; Hyaluronic acid (HA), 0.72 and 0.75; 7 S type 4 collagen (T4C), 0.61 and 0.66; aspartate aminotransferase platelet ratio index (APRI), 0.76 and 0.83; and Fib-4, 0.75 and 0.76. Univariable logistic analysis for predicting PA showed that C indices were 0.751 (p = 0.007), 0.798 (p = 0.106), 0.771 (p = 0.050), 0.674 (p = 0.855), 0.655 (p = 0.263), and 0.560 (p = 0.640) for MRE, WM2BP, Fib-4, HA, APRI, and T4C, respectively. Conclusion MRE has a higher diagnostic performance than biological markers in detecting the stages of liver fibrosis and is a potential predictor for PA after hepatectomy.