Value of serum Golgi protein 73 in assisting the diagnosis of moderate or severe liver injury in patients with chronic hepatitis B

Objective To investigate the value of Golgi protein 73 (GP73) in the diagnosis of liver inflammatory activity and fibrosis degree in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients.Methods Serum samples were collected from 678 patients who underwent liver biopsy in 302 Hospital of PLA from December 2013 to May 2017, and the patients were randomly divided into group A with 477 patients and group B with 201 patients.A double-antibody sandwich ELISA kit was used to measure the serum level of GP73 according to instructions.The Mann-Whitney U test was used for the comparison of two independent samples, the Spearman correlation analysis was used to investigate correlation, and the chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups.Results The serum level of GP73 increased with increasing liver inflammatory activity and fibrosis degree in both groups; in group A, the serum level of GP73 was significantly correlated with liver inflammatory activity and fibrosis degree (r = 0.529 and 0.434, both P < 0.001) , and a similar result was obtained in group B (r =0.418 and 0.437, both P < 0.001) .The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of serum GP73 to diagnose G≥2 liver inflammation and necrosis and G≥3 inflammation and necrosis were 0.774 (95% confidence interval [CI]:0.733-0.811, P < 0.001) and0.844 (95% CI:0.808-0.875, P < 0.001) in group A and 0.730 (95% CI:0.663-0.790, P < 0.001) and 0.716 (95% CI:0.649-0.777, P < 0.001) in group B.With the help of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) combined with serum GP73, 77.4% of the patients in group A and 78.9% of the patients in group B were found to have G≥2 and/or S≥2 disease.Conclusion Serum GP73 can be used in combination with ALT to identify the CHB patients that need antiviral therapy and thus reduce the dependence on liver biopsy.