CD4/CD8 ratio is a promising candidate for non-invasive measurement of liver fibrosis in chronic HCV-monoinfected patients

Abstract

The extent of liver fibrosis is an important factor in prognosis and clinical decision-making in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We investigated CD4/CD8 ratio in HCV-monoinfected and HIV/HCV-coinfected patients, in order to reveal its relation with liver fibrosis. CD4/CD8 ratio in the peripheral blood was assessed by flow cytometry in a cohort of 19 HCV-monoinfected, 14 HIV/HCV-coinfected, ten HIV-monoinfected patients and 15 healthy controls. Liver fibrosis was assessed by transient elastography (n = 25) or by liver biopsy (n = 8). Coinfection with HIV was associated with decreased CD4/CD8 ratios in chronic HCV-infected patients, despite adequate antiretroviral treatment. Furthermore, HCV-monoinfected patients with F3-F4 liver fibrosis demonstrated much lower CD4/CD8 ratios than patients with F0-F2 fibrosis (1.4 versus 2.5, p = 0.023). Similarly, we observed a strong negative correlation between the CD4/CD8 ratio and liver stiffness measured by transient elastography (R = -0.78, p = 0.0006). ROC analysis revealed that CD4/CD8 ratio as a non-invasive marker for fibrosis is very promising (area under the curve 0.8). Although our study was performed with a relatively small number of patients, our findings suggest that the CD4/CD8 ratio is a promising candidate for non-invasive evaluation of liver fibrosis in HCV-monoinfected patients.