{"doi":"10.1111/apt.16092","title":"Fibroscan liver stiffness after anti‐viral treatment for hepatitis C is independently associated with adverse outcomes","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Fibroscan-derived liver stiffness decreases after anti-viral treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, which may affect the associations and interpretation of liver stiffness. AIMS: To assess whether liver stiffness pre- or post-anti-viral therapy is associated with the development of decompensated cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or death. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, we identified US veterans who initiated HCV treatment and had at least one liver stiffness before (n = 492) or after (n = 877) HCV therapy. We used Cox proportional hazards regression (adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, history of cirrhosis, body mass index, diabetes, FIB-4 score, Charlson comorbidity index, alcohol use disorder, Model for end-stage liver disease score and sustained virological response status) to determine the associations between pre- or post-treatment liver stiffness values and the development of decompensated cirrhosis, HCC, death or liver transplant. RESULTS: In the post-treatment liver stiffness cohort, during a mean follow-up of 27.3 months, 21 (2.4%) developed decompensated cirrhosis, 26 (3.0%) developed HCC and 57 (6.5%) died or underwent liver transplant. Compared to patients with post-treatment liver stiffness ≤12.5 kPa, those with post-treatment liver stiffness >20 kPa, had higher rates of developing decompensated cirrhosis (adjusted HR 3.85, 95% CI 1.29-11.50) and the composite outcome of death, liver transplant, decompensated cirrhosis or HCC (adjusted HR 1.95, 95% CI: 1.07-3.56). There were no significant associations between pre-treatment liver stiffness and any outcomes on multivariable analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Post-treatment liver stiffness >20 kPa, but not pre-treatment liver stiffness, was independently associated with the development of decompensated cirrhosis and the composite outcome in multivariable analyses. Measuring liver stiffness should be considered after anti-viral treatment because it predicts adverse outcomes even beyond routinely available clinical predictors.","journal":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","year":2020,"id":104244,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":24,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9126,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":339257,"name":"Nicole J. Kim","orcid":"0000-0003-2348-0580","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226653,"name":"Andrew M. Moon","orcid":"0000-0001-7163-2062","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":506701,"name":"Meredith Pearson","orcid":"0000-0001-6884-9594","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226667,"name":"Feng Su","orcid":"0000-0002-7707-1072","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":461963,"name":"Kristin Berry","orcid":"0009-0000-7372-7727","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388273,"name":"Hannah Gelman","orcid":"0000-0002-5752-5305","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339271,"name":"George N. Ioannou","orcid":"0000-0003-1796-8977","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":506700,"name":"Philip Vutien","orcid":"0000-0002-4196-6077","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":27,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:43:22.755723Z","pmid":"32951216","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}