Diagnostic accuracy of red blood cell distribution width to platelet ratio for predicting liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to systematically review the performance of red blood cell distribution width to platelet ratio (RPR) in the diagnosis of significant or advanced fibrosis, and cirrhosis associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV).

Methods: The relevant studies were comprehensively searched in English databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, as well as Chinese databases such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data from the inception to March 2021. Accuracy of RPR in diagnosing significant or advanced fibrosis and liver cirrhosis was assessed by area under the curve (AUC), pooled sensitivity and specificity, as well as positive and negative likelihood ratios. Stata 15.0 software was applied to analyze the data.

Results: In total, 13 literature met the requirements, including patients with significant fibrosis (n=1890), advanced fibrosis (n=645), and cirrhosis (n=499). The prevalence rates of significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis were 49.31% (range: 17.25-84.21%), 37.07% (range: 9.60-58.20%) and 2.18% (range: 2.78-44.19%), respectively. The AUCs for predicting significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis, and cirrhosis by RPR were 0.73 (95%CI: 0.69-0.76), 0.80 (95%CI: 0.77-0.84) and 0.80 (95%CI: 0.76-0.83), respectively.

Conclusion: RPR is of some diagnostic value to the prediction of HBV-related significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis. This conclusion is urgently needed to be verified by further multi-center studies of large sample size and rigorous design.

Keywords: Anchura de distribución de los glóbulos rojos en relación con las plaquetas; Fibrosis; Hepatitis B virus (HBV); Metaanálisis; Red blood cell distribution width to platelet ratio (RPR); Virus de la hepatitis B; fibrosis; meta-analysis.