Quantitative Anti-HBc in Liver Pathological States in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Table 4

Performance of serum anti-HBc, HBsAg, and HBV DNA for predicting liver pathological states.

Predicting pathological states of HBeAg-positive
State variable	Test variable	ROC curve analyses			Tradeoff cutoffs (log10 IU/mL) and corresponding parameters
		AUC	SE	95% CI	Cutoff	Sen (%)	Spe (%)	Ppv (%)	Npv (%)	Acc
≥G2	Anti-HBc	0.683^a	0.0341	0.622–0.740	>3.558	59.4	62.8	51.3	70.1	0.606
	HBsAg	0.635^b	0.0353	0.572–0.694	≤3.709	47.5	75.2	55.8	68.5	0.615
	HBV DNA	0.538^ab	0.0365	0.475–0.601	≤7.117	51.5	56.2	43.7	63.7	0.535
≥G3	Anti-HBc	0.662	0.0683	0.601–0.720	>3.558	62.5	55.0	8.5	95.6	0.424
	HBsAg	0.729^c	0.0576	0.670–0.783	≤3.709	75.0	68.9	14.0	97.6	0.522
	HBV DNA	0.579^c	0.0704	0.516–0.640	≤7.117	56.3	53.8	7.6	94.8	0.410
≥S2	Anti-HBc	0.627^d	0.0351	0.564–0.687	>3.594	48.9	67.8	64.8	52.3	0.574
	HBsAg	0.609^e	0.0359	0.546–0.670	≤3.732	43.2	73.9	66.7	51.8	0.567
	HBV DNA	0.535^de	0.0370	0.472–0.597	≤6.782	41.7	64.4	58.6	47.7	0.518
=S4	Anti-HBc	0.683	0.0523	0.622–0.740	>3.594	67.7	62.7	21.9	92.6	0.539
	HBsAg	0.751	0.0435	0.693–0.803	≤3.732	73.5	70.5	27.8	94.5	0.605
	HBV DNA	0.675	0.0496	0.613–0.732	≤6.782	64.7	65.0	22.2	92.3	0.547
Predicting pathological states of HBeAg-negative
State variable	Test variable	ROC curve analyses			Tradeoff cutoffs (log10 IU/mL) and corresponding parameters
		AUC	SE	95% CI	Cutoff	Sen (%)	Spe (%)	Ppv (%)	Npv (%)	Acc
≥G2	Anti-HBc	0.681^f	0.0410	0.618–0.740	>4.454	52.7	68.7	33.7	82.8	0.581
	HBsAg	0.622^g	0.0401	0.557–0.684	>3.411	56.4	62.6	31.3	82.6	0.557
	HBV DNA	0.833^fg	0.0287	0.780–0.878	>4.637	67.3	78.0	48.1	88.7	0.696
≥G3	Anti-HBc	0.702	0.0841	0.639–0.760	>4.454	68.8	66.1	12.8	96.7	0.500
	HBsAg	0.653^h	0.0718	0.589–0.713	>3.411	62.5	59.7	10.1	95.7	0.455
	HBV DNA	0.800^h	0.0421	0.743–0.849	>4.637	75.0	70.6	15.6	97.5	0.539
S2	Anti-HBc	0.569^i	0.0378	0.503–0.633	>4.309	47.4	57.1	43.4	61.1	0.522
	HBsAg	0.572^j	0.0371	0.506–0.635	>3.320	52.6	55.7	45.1	62.9	0.538
	HBV DNA	0.723^ij	0.0338	0.661–0.779	>4.152	60.8	70.7	59.0	72.3	0.657
S4	Anti-HBc	0.630^k	0.0521	0.565–0.691	>4.309	55.9	57.1	17.9	88.5	0.483
	HBsAg	0.566^l	0.0441	0.500–0.630	>3.320	55.9	53.7	16.8	87.9	0.462
	HBV DNA	0.746^kl	0.0421	0.685–0.800	>4.152	70.6	62.6	24.0	92.7	0.553

AUC, areas under ROC curve; SE, standard error; 95% CI, 95% confidence interval; Sen, sensitivity; Spe, specificity; Ppv, positive predictive value; Npv, negative predictive value; Acc, accuracy. ^a–lPairwise comparisons between different AUCs, , by the paired-samples Delong Z test. a: Z = 3.481, ; b: Z = 3.245, ; c: Z = 2.365, ; d: Z = 2.238, ; e: Z = 2.547, ; f: Z = 3.676, ; g: Z = 5.072, ; h: Z = 2.590, ; i: Z = 4.266, ; j: Z = 3.491, ; k: Z = 2.219, ; l: Z = 3.431, .