Hyaluronic acid level was determined by radioimmuno-assay and its degrading enzymes and degradation products were determined by standard techniques in 153 patients with CHC with and without liver cirrhosis. Statistical analyses were performed by logistic regression, and receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
The multivariate discriminant analysis (MDA) selected a function based on absolute values of five biochemical markers; Score = [1.63 + Hyaluronic acid (μg/l) × 0.001 + N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase (μmol/ml/min) × 0.02 + glucuronic acid (μg/dl) × 0.015 + glucosamine (μg/dl) × 0.006 + AST/ALT ratio × 0.04]. The selected MDA function correctly classified 96 % of the cirrhotic patients at a discriminant cut-off score = 2.5 (i.e. less than 2.5 indicated CHC without liver cirrhosis and greater than 2.5 indicated liver cirrhosis) with high degrees of sensitivity (95 % ) and specificity (97 % ). The positive predictive and negative predictive values were also high (95 % and 97 % , respectively).
A patient with CHC can be simply and efficiently classified into cirrhotic or non-cirrhotic liver diseased patient using his or her MDA score.