Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic performance of FibroTouch scan in predicting liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriers. Methods 66 HBV carriers were encountered in Longgang Central Hospital, Shenzhen, between July 2017 and December 2019, and all underwent liver biopsy. The liver fibrosis based on four factors (FIB-4) was calculated routinely, and the liver stiffness measurement (LSM) was detected by FibroTouch. The ROC was drawn by MedCalc software. Results The liver histopathological examination showed S₀-S₁ in 24 cases, S₂-S₃ in 27 cases and liver cirrhosis (S₄) in 15 cases in our series; the LSM in carriers with S_0-1 was (7.8±1.8) kPa, significantly lower than [(11.4±3.1)kPa, P＜0.01] in those with progressive liver fibrosis or [(18.2±6.2)kPa, P＜0.01] in patients with liver cirrhosis, and the FBI-4 in carriers with S_0-1 was (1.0±0.5), in those with S_2-3 was (1.2±0.5), not significantly different between them (P>0.05), while both significantly lower than [(2.0±1.0, P<0.01] in patients with liver cirrhosis; the AUCs by LSM in predicting S₂, S₃ and S₄ were 0.856 [with sensitivity (Se) of 83.7% and specificity (Sp) of 52.6%, 0.938( Se of 92.3% and Sp of 90.0%, and 0.963(Se of 100.0% and Sp of 90.2%), all significantly higher than by FBI-4 (P<0.05), while the combination of LSM and FIB-4 didn’t improve the diagnostic performance (P>0.05). Conclusion The non-invasive diagnosis of liver fibrosis by FibroTouch detection in chronic HBV carriers is efficacious, and warrants further clinical investigation.

Key words: Hepatitis B viral carriers, Transient elastic imaging, Liver fibrosis, FIB-4 index, Diagnosis