Application of liver and spleen volume measurement in assessing the degree of liver fibrosis in patients with HBV infection

Objective To evaluate the value of liver spleen volume measurement in assessing the degree of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis B virus(HBV) infection. Methods Total 110 HBV-infected patients with cirrhosis diagnosed at the Hangzhou Normal University Affiliated Hospital from February 2015 to August 2018 were enrolled. The 42 healthy adults treated in our hospital were selected as the control group. Spiral CT scans were performed to measure the volume of each hepatic lobe and the volume of spleen. The ratio of each hepatic lobe volume/total liver volume and the ratio of total liver volume/spleen volume were calculated and compared with the pathological results. Results The volume of the left lateral lobe, the volume of the caudate lobe and their ratio to the whole liver volume were the smallest in the control group, and increased gradually with the progress of liver fibrosis, and the volume of the left lateral lobe was the largest in the cirrhosis group(all P<0.05). The right lobe, quadrate lobe and total liver volume were the largest in stage S2 and then decreased with the progress of liver fibrosis, and the smallest in cirrhosis group(all P<0.05). The volume of spleen increased continuously with the progress of liver fibrosis, and its volume was the largest in the subgroup of cirrhosis. The value of whole liver volume/spleen volume decreased continuously with the progress of liver fibrosis, and was the smallest in the cirrhosis group(all P<0.05). The values of left lateral lobe volume/total liver volume, tail lobe volume/total liver volume were positively correlated with liver fibrosis(all P<0.05), while the values of total liver volume/spleen volume were negatively correlated with left lateral lobe volume/total liver volume, and liver fibrosis(all P<0.05). Conclusion Measuring the volume of liver and spleen by spiral CT is a non-invasive and reliable method to evaluate the degree of liver cirrhosis after HBV infection. With the progress of liver fibrosis, the volume of liver and spleen has different degrees of correlation with it, among which the volume of left lateral lobe, caudate lobe and spleen is higher correlation with fibrosis.