Abstract

Background: As a non-invasive method, transient elastography (TE) has been used for staging fibrosis in many different liver diseases. However, in the stage of autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) fibrosis, the diagnostic criteria for transient elastography has not been established. Aim: This study used summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) to assess transient elastography for diagnosing and stage liver fibrosis in patients with autoimmune hepatitis. Methods: Electronic databases and conference abstracts were searched, and studies were identified to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of TE in AIH patients for staging fibrosis F ≥ 2, F ≥ 3 and F = 4 with liver biopsy as a reference standard. The SROC curve and the bivariate models were performed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of TE. Methodological quality was assessed with Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 tools. Results: Seven studies with a total of 469 patients were enrolled in the meta-analysis. The summary sensitivity of transient elastography for staging fibrosis F ≥ 2, F ≥ 3 and F = 4 were 0.83 (95% CI, 0.75–0.88), 0.81 (95% CI,0.72–0.88) and 0.88 (95% CI, 0.79–0.93), respectively, and the summary specificity were 0.84(95% CI, 0.76–0.90), 0.90 (95% CI, 0.79–0.95) and 0.94 (95% CI, 0.86–0.97), respectively. Conclusions: TE performs well to diagnose liver fibrosis in AIH patients.