Abstract
BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis is critical for successful intervention before liver disease progresses to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. AIM: To examine a novel biomarker for probing early liver disease quickly using an automated immunology system. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study. 140 patients at various stages of liver disease were randomly selected. The cohort consisted of patients who were treatment naïve and currently undergoing therapy. We included patients with diverse liver disease etiologies. Mac-2 binding protein glycosylation isomer (M2BPGi) levels in addition to different clinical parameters, co-morbidities and transient elastography results were collected and compared. RESULTS: M2BPGi levels were significantly correlated with transient elastography for liver fibrosis staging across all disease etiologies. Statistically significant differences were observed in patients with F0-1; F2 and > F3 liver fibrosis. Further examination showed that M2BPGi levels were two-fold higher in F4 than F3 hepatitis C (HCV) patients. M2BPGi was observed to be etiology-specific and HCV patients had higher mean M2BPGi levels. We also observed significant correlations with aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index and fibrosis-4 index as well as HBV DNA levels. Mean M2BPGi levels for HBV patients with a viral load lower than 2000 IU/mL was 1.75-fold lower than those with a viral load greater than 2000 IU/mL. CONCLUSION: M2BPGi was observed to be a good indicator of early liver disease in patients with different etiologies. Our results provide reference cut-offs for different causes of liver disease and demonstrated the utility of this marker for early disease monitoring. This is useful for remote regions in developing countries.