Influencing factors for FibroTouch measurements in chronic hepatitis B patients based on liver pathology

Objective To investigate the changes in positive staining of CD34, CK7, and CK19 and amount of fibrous collagen deposition in patients with chronic hepatitis B ( CHB) and the pathological basis affecting FibroTouch measurements. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 72 CHB patients who visited Department of Liver Cirrhosis in Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2015 to December 2017. The amount of positive immunohistochemical staining of CD34, CK7, and CK19 was calculated, as well as the amount of fibrous collagen deposition in Masson trichrome staining and liver stiffness measurement ( LSM) by FibroTouch. The t-test was used for comparison of normally distributed continuous data between two groups. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used for comparison of non-normally distributed continuous data or continuous data with heterogeneity of variance between two groups. The chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison of ranked data between multiple groups. The receiver operating characteristic ( ROC) curve was used to analyze the value of LSM in the diagnosis of hepatitis B cirrhosis, and the logistic regression model was used for multivariate analysis. Results With the increase in inflammation degree, there was no significant change in the amount of positive staining of CD34 ( P > 0. 05) , while there were significant increases in the amount of positive staining of CK19 and the amount of fibrous collagen deposition ( H = 9. 02 and 14. 12, P =0. 011 and 0. 001) . With the progression of liver fibrosis, there were significant increases in the amount of positive staining of CD34 and CK7 and the amount of fibrous collagen deposition ( H = 10. 26, 16. 29, and 22. 97, P = 0. 016, 0. 001, and < 0. 001) . The logistic regression analysis showed that the amount of positive staining of CK7 ( Wald = 4. 756, P = 0. 029) and the amount of fibrous collagen deposition ( Wald = 4. 757, P = 0. 029) were independent influencing factors for FibroTouch measurements. Conclusion Increases in the amount of fibrous collagen deposition and the amount of positive staining of CK7 may lead to increased FibroTouch measurements.