Noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis in thalassaemia major patients by transient elastography (TE) - lack of interference by iron deposition.

ABSTRACT

The correlation between liver stiffness, measured by transient elastography, liver fibrosis, using the histological METAVIR score, and iron overload, measured by atomic absorption spectrometry was evaluated in 56 homozygous-beta-thalassaemics. Liver stiffness increased proportionally to liver fibrosis staging (r = 0.70; P > 0.001) independently of liver iron concentration (r = 0.01; P = 0.932). The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve for prediction of cirrhosis was 0.997 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.925-1.000) with cut-off of 13 kPa with 100% sensitivity (95% CI 69.0-100.0) and 95% specificity (95% CI 84.2-99.3). Transient elastography is a reliable non-invasive tool for diagnosing advanced liver fibrosis in homozygous-beta-thalassaemics, regardless of the degree of iron overload.