Abstract: Objective To investigate the accessing value of indocyanine green clearance test for liver functional reserve in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related liver diseases and its clinical significance. Methods Assessment of indocyanine green retention rate at 15 minutes (ICG R15) was carried out in 56 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and 144 patients with HBV-related cirrhosis, which were compared by t-test. In addition, the spearman correlation test was used to analyze the relationship among ICGR15, model for end-stage liver disease score (MELD) and Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) class in cirrhosis patients. Finally, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of ICG R15 and MELD score were calculated to compare their performance in assessing liver functional reserve. Results A total of 200 patients were enrolled, including 127 males and 73 females with mean age of 43±8.1 years. ICG R15 of 144 cirrhosis patients was 2.40%~60.00% with average value of 22.80±16.00, which was significantly higher than 1.40%~9.50% with average value of 4.43±2.19 in CHB patients. Among these patients, there were 70 in class A with MELD score of 4.99±2.76, 56 in class B with MELD score of 6.24±4.69 and 20 in class C with MELD score of 11.71±3.77. In terms of liver reserve function, ICG R15 showed positive correlation with MELD score and CTP class (r=0.414, r=0.67, P<0.01). AUC for ICG R15 and MELD were 0.903 and 0.634 in assessing prognosis of cirrhosis patients, respectively. Conclusion Indocyanine green clearance test could dynamically assess liver functional reserve, and its combination with MELD score could better reflect liver function and assess prognosis.

Key words: Chronic hepatitis B, Liver cirrhosis, Indocyanine green clearance test