Periportal thickening on magnetic resonance imaging for hepatic fibrosis in infantile cholestasis

Table 1 Clinical summary of the patients with infantile cholestasis

	Overall (n = 155)	BA (n = 110)	Non-BA (n = 45)	P value
Demographics
Age (d)	57.6 ± 34.4	59.7 ± 30.3	52.4 ± 42.8	0.303
Gender (M:F)	61:94	41:69	20:25	0.470
Laboratory results
APRI	1.32 ± 1.61	1.47 ± 1.66	0.95 ± 1.42	0.069
Imaging findings
PT (mm)	4.9 ± 1.8	5.7 ± 1.4	2.9 ± 0.9	< 0.001
SR	1.02 ± 0.20	1.07 ± 0.19	0.91 ± 0.17	< 0.001
METAVIR grades (Patients’ number)
F0/F1/F2/F3/F4	32/10/66/37/10	1/4/59/37/9	31/6/7/0/1	< 0.001

P values from independent t-test except for gender and fibrosis grades from χ² test. BA: Biliary atresia; APRI: Aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index; SR: Normalized spleen size ratio; PT: Periportal thickening.

Table 2 Comparison and correlation analyses for fibrosis grading

	Age (d)	APRI	PT (mm)	SR
Hepatic fibrosis group comparison
F0 (n = 32)	40.8 ± 34.8	1.12 ± 1.63	3.1 ± 1.1	0.89 ± 0.15
F1 (n = 10)	60.6 ± 44.0	0.46 ± 0.38	3.3 ± 1.3	0.94 ± 0.20
F2 (n = 66)	52.3 ± 31.0	1.14 ± 1.23	5.2 ± 1.4	1.01 ± 0.17
F3 (n = 37)	71.9 ± 28.6	2.00 ± 2.27	5.9 ± 1.6	1.12 ± 0.20
F4 (n = 10)	89.7 ± 26.6	1.52 ± 0.55	5.7 ± 1.6	1.21 ± 0.17
P value	< 0.001	0.026	< 0.001	< 0.001
Correlation analysis
Overall correlation
τ	0.313	0.326	0.448	0.361
P value	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Partial correlation with adjusting age
τ		0.071	0.518	0.340
P value		0.405	< 0.001	< 0.001

P values from analysis of variance for group comparisons and Kendall’s tau for correlation analyses. APRI: Aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index; PT: Periportal thickening, SR: Normalized spleen size ratio.

Table 3 Diagnostic performance of the parameters

Variable	Cutoff value	Sensitivity (%)	Specificity (%)	AUC	95%CI	P value
Clinically significant fibrosis (F2-F4)
APRI	0.44	84.1	59.5	0.712	0.634-0.782	0.001
PT	4.2 mm	81.4	85.7	0.899	0.840-0.941	< 0.001
SR	0.85	85.0	54.8	0.741	0.664-0.808	< 0.001
Advanced fibrosis (F3-F4)
APRI	0.78	78.7	63.0	0.724	0.647-0.793	< 0.001
PT	5.3 mm	66.0	71.3	0.734	0.657-0.801	< 0.001
SR	1.1	61.7	78.7	0.742	0.666-0.809	< 0.001
Cirrhosis (F4)
APRI	1.24	90.0	70.3	0.715	0.637-0.785	0.002
PT	5.3 mm	70.0	62.1	0.656	0.675-0.730	0.058
SR	1.04	90.0	61.4	0.790	0.718-0.852	< 0.001

AUC: Area under the curve; APRI: Aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index; PT: Periportal thickening; SR: Normalized spleen size ratio.