Prospective validation of a noninvasive index for predicting liver fibrosis in hepatitis C virus-infected liver transplant recipients

We previously developed a mathematical model, the Hospital Universitario La Fe (HULF) index, as an alternative to protocol liver biopsy (PLB) to estimate significant fibrosis (SF) in patients who underwent liver transplantation (LT) for liver damage caused by chronic HCV infection. In the present study, we sought to validate this noninvasive index. The commonly derived clinical and laboratory data for calculating the HULF index were prospectively collected over 2.7 years from patients undergoing LT and PLB. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and diagnostic capacity were evaluated with receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Biopsy was performed …