Abstract

Background: Since ages, liver biopsy has been used to determine the estate of fibrosis since in all types of chronic liver disease to provide proper and timely management to the patients. Due to severe complications of liver biopsy, other tools are used to ascertain fibrosis including biomarkers and radiological devices. This study’s objective is to correlatively measure the efficacy of direct serum marker YKL-40 with fibroscan liver and one of the non-invasive mathematical algorithm i.e. alanine aminotransferase and platelet ratio index in patients with hepatitis C with Child’s Class A or B.

Methodology: This observational cross sectional analysis was managedat a private setup and hospital facilities providing tertiary care inKarachi during the duration of January 2019 till September 2019. Total 70 patients were incurred with the age distribution of 16-65 years of each sex with hepatitis C in Child’s class A or B.

Result: Out of 70 patients, 57 were studied due to lack of follow up of the rest. There were 42 females. The calculated mean age among these patients was 4313 years. There was a significant co-relation observed between YKL-40 and fibroscan liver with the p-value of 0.004. There was also significant co-relation found between YKL-40 and one the indirect mathematical calculated marker i.e Alanine aminotransferase and Platelet ratio index with a p value of 0.032.

Conclusion: YKL-40 can be used for the estimation of staging of liver fibrosis in comparison to fibroscan elastography, which is an operator dependent procedure with certain limitation. The single indirect mathematical calculated marker also shows significant result to determine stages of liver fibrosis.

Key Words: Chronic Hepatitis C, YKL-40, Fibroscan Elastography, Alanine aminotransferase Platelet Ratio Index