Diagnosis of esophageal varices: Correlation between non-invasive tests and digestive endoscopy.

Introduction: Esophageal variceal bleeding (EVB) is one of the main causes of mortality and morbidity in cirrhotic patients. Non-invasive tests (NIT) of liver fibrosis have been developed to predict the presence of esophageal varices (EV).

Aim: To evaluate the performance of NIT of liver fibrosis such as liver transient elastography (TE) and serum scores in predicting EV.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective collecting patients with chronic liver disease. TE and serum scores were evaluated for all patients and correlated with endoscopic data.

Results: One hundred and fifty patients were included with an average age of 58.98 years and a sex ratio of 0.68. Sixty-seven patients were cirrhotic. Viral origin C was found in 72% of cases. Thirty-three patients had EV. NIT of liver fibrosis such as TE and serum scores were statistically correlated to the presence of EV. TE had the better performance for the prediction of EV with a Cut-off of 13.5 Kpa and AUC of 0.855. In multivariate analysis, TE, AST to ALT ratio and platelet count were independent predictors of EV.

Conclusion: The performance of TE and serum scores in the diagnosis of EV and LEV was demonstrated. These results suggest that NIT of liver fibrosis make it possible to select patients who are candidates for gastroscopy.