Diagnostic Performance of TE, 2D-SWE And MRE For Liver Fibrosis In Treatment-Naive People With HBV: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis

Abstract Background/aims: To assess the performance of transient elastography (TE), two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE), and magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) for staging significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in untreated chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. Methods: Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library were searched for terms involving CHB, TE, SWE, and MRE. Other etiologies of chronic liver disease (CLD), previous treatment in patients or articles not published in SCI journals were excluded. Hierarchical non-linear models were used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of TE, 2D-SWE and MRE. Heterogeneity was explored via analysis of threshold effect and meta-regression. Results: Twenty-eight articles with a total of 4540 untreated CHB patients were included. The summary AUROC using TE, 2D-SWE and MRE for predicting significant fibrosis (SF) were 0.84, 0.89, and 0.99, respectively. MRE is more accurate than both TE (P＜0.01) and 2D-SWE (P＜0.01) in staging SF. 2D-SWE is superior to TE in detecting SF (P＜0.01). The summary AUROC employing TE, 2D-SWE and MRE for detecting cirrhosis were 0.9, 0.94, and 0.99, respectively. TE displayed a similar diagnostic accuracy with 2D-SWE in staging cirrhosis (P=0.14). MRE and 2D-SWE are comparable for staging cirrhosis (P=0.08). MRE is superior than TE (P＜0.01) in staging cirrhosis.Conclusion: TE, 2D-SWE, and MRE express acceptable diagnostic accuracies in staging staging significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in untreated CHB patients. Both MRE and 2D-SWE are better choices while the TE can be regarded as a secondary option.