Background: The expanded Baveno-VI criteria may further reduce the need for screening gastroscopy compared to Baveno-VI criteria.
Aim: We sought to validate the performance of these criteria in a cohort of compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD) patients with predominantly hepatitis B infection.
Methods: Consecutive cACLD patients from 2006 to 2012 with paired liver stiffness measurements and screening gastroscopy within 1 year were included. The expanded Baveno-VI criteria were applied to evaluate the sensitivity (SS), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for the presence of high-risk varices (HRV).
Results: Among 165 cACLD patients included, 17 (10.3%) had HRV. The commonest etiology of cACLD was chronic hepatitis B (36.4%) followed by NAFLD (20.0%). Application of expanded Baveno-VI criteria avoided more screening gastroscopy (43.6%) as compared to the original Baveno-VI criteria (18.8%) without missing more HRV (1 with both criteria). The overall SS, SP, PPV and NPV of the expanded Baveno-VI criteria in predicting HRV were 94.1%, 48.0%, 17.2% and 98.6%, respectively.
Conclusion: Application of the expanded Baveno-VI criteria can safely avoid screening gastroscopy in 43.6% of cACLD patients with an excellent ability to exclude HRV.
Keywords: Esophageal and gastric varices; Gastroscopy; Hypertension, Portal; Liver cirrhosis.