Serum ferritin diagnosis and prediction of hepatitis B virus‐related acute‐on‐chronic liver failure

Early diagnosis and prediction of hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBV-ACLF) is important to reduce mortality. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic and predictive value of serum ferritin (SF) in HBV-ACLF patients. Clinical data from 1905 hospitalized patients with acute deterioration of HBV-related chronic liver diseases were analyzed to explore the association between SF and ACLF. A co-expression network based on transcriptomics data for 20 HBV-ACLF patients was constructed to investigate biological processes related to ferritin. Of 1270 patients in the derivation group, 440 and 830 were diagnosed with and without ACLF, respectively, based on Chinese Group on the Study of Severe Hepatitis B-ACLF criteria. SF levels showed high diagnostic accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUROC]: 0.820) for ACLF at admission. In patients with ACLF, SF was associated with liver and coagulation failure. In patients without ACLF, SF predicted risk for 28-day progression to ACLF (AUROC: 0.808). A validation group of 635 patients confirmed the above results. Moreover, SF was significantly associated with the immune response based on transcriptomics analysis. SF is a potential diagnostic and predictive marker for HBV-ACLF and might play a crucial role in immune disorders in HBV-ACLF.