Transient elastography, APRI, and ultrasound have minimal utility in chronic low-replicative hepatitis B infection
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. E-antigen-negative CHB patients, with low liver enzymes and viremia, generally fare better. We determined the proportion of chronic low-replicative hepatitis B patients not meeting guideline-based antiviral therapy criteria nonetheless requiring treatment and increased hepatocellular carcinoma and varices surveillance based on transient elastography (TE), aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI), and/or ultrasound (US) findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Ottawa Hospital Viral Hepatitis Database was utilized. Included CHB patients were observed from January 2011 to April 2013, who were at least 18 years of age, e-antigen negative, with hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA levels below 20,000 IU/ml, normal liver enzymes (alanine transaminase <64 U/l), and normal synthetic function. Patients with other liver diseases, HIV, or HBV antiviral use were excluded. TE and US results were recorded and APRI was calculated. RESULTS: A total of 264 patients met the eligibility criteria and 79 underwent TE. The median age was 41 years (quartiles: 37, 49); 53% were male patients and 95% were immigrants. Races included 47% Southeast Asians, 37% Black, and 11% White. Mean alanine transaminase and aspartate aminotransferase were 34 U/l (SD 13) and 21 U/l (SD 7), respectively. The mean HBV DNA level was 2.15×10 IU/ml. The mean TE score was 4.5 kPa (SD 1.1). One patient had F2 fibrosis by TE. All others were F0-F1. The mean APRI was 0.30 (SD 0.20) with no values greater than 1.5. CONCLUSION: No patients were identified with advanced fibrosis by TE, APRI, or US meriting HBV antiviral therapy and/or enhanced screening. TE and US have minimal apparent utility in this specific population.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".