Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic performance of sound touch elastography (STE) and sound touch quantify (STQ) combined with ultrasound (US) score for assessment of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Methods 106 patients with CHB were enrolled in our hospital between January 2020 and December 2022, and they all underwent liver biopsies for the assessment of liver fibrosis Metavir staging (≥F2 as significant liver fibrosis). The liver stiffness measurement (LSM) was obtained by STE and STQ. The ultrasound score for liver fibrosis was calculated according to the two-dimensional ultrasonography. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to assess the diagnostic efficacy of US parameters. Results Among the 106 patients with CHB, the ≥F2 liver fibrosis were found in 62 cases and <F2 (no significant liver fibrosis) in 44 cases; the LSM_STE, LSM_STQ and LSM_US in patients with significant liver fibrosis were (12.7±2.2)kPa, (13.3±2.3)kPa and (10.5±2.2), all significantly greater than [(9.2±2.1)kPa, (8.9±1.7)kPa and (7.2±1.3), respectively, all P<0.05] in patients without significant liver fibrosis; the ROC analysis showed that the AUCs were 0.869(95%CI:0.803-0.935), 0.809(95%CI:0.728-0.891) and 0.767(95%CI:0.679-0.855), when the LSM_STE, LSM_STQ and LSM_US were applied for predicting the significant liver fibrosis, and the diagnostic performance of the three parameter combination was much superior to any one of them(the AUC was 0.949, with the 95%CI of 0.912-0.986, P<0.05). Conclusion The combination of LSM_STE, LSM_STQ and LSM_US is greatly efficacious in predicting significant liver fibrosis in patients with CHB, and as a non-invasive diagnosis, it is worthy of further clinical verification.

Key words: Hepatitis B, Liver fibrosis, Ultrasonography, Sound touch elastography, Sound touch quantify, Diagnosis