Validation of PAGE ‐B model in Asian chronic hepatitis B patients receiving entecavir or tenofovir

Background & Aims A new hepatocellular carcinoma risk prediction model, PAGE ‐B, which includes age, gender and platelet count as constituent variables, has recently been proposed in Caucasian chronic hepatitis B patients. We validated PAGE ‐B model and compared its accuracy with that of conventional risk prediction models in Asian chronic hepatitis B patients. Methods Chronic hepatitis B patients treated with entecavir or tenofovir were consecutively recruited. The performance of PAGE ‐B and three conventional risk prediction models ( CU ‐ HCC , GAG ‐ HCC and REACH ‐B) were analysed. Results A total of 1092 chronic hepatitis B patients (668 men, 61.2%) were selected between August 2006 and January 2015. The mean age was 48 years. During the follow‐up period (median, 43.6 months), 36 (3.3%) patients developed hepatocellular carcinoma. Older age (hazard ratio [ HR ]=1.077), male gender ( HR =3.676) and lower platelet count ( HR =0.984) were independent predictors of hepatocellular carcinoma development. The PAGE ‐B showed similar area under receiver operating characteristic curves ( AUROC s) to GAG ‐ HCC and CU ‐ HCC at 3 years (0.777 vs 0.793 and 0.743, respectively; all P> .05) and 5 years (0.799 vs 0.803 and 0.744, respectively; all P> .05), whereas the AUROC s of PAGE ‐B were significantly higher than those of the REACH ‐B (0.602 at 3 years and 0.572 at 5 years, P <.05). Conclusions Our study demonstrated that PAGE ‐B is applicable to Asian chronic hepatitis B patients receiving ETV or TDF therapy. The PAGE ‐B showed similar predictive performance to GAG ‐ HCC and CU ‐ HCC .