Furthermore, the most recent study to date, reported by the present study group, has established a fibrosis index (fib-index) for the assessment of liver fibrosis based on panels of selected cytokines.11 Compared with APRI and FIB-4 scores, this fib-index showed greater diagnostic performance in identifying significant fibrosis in patients with mildly elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels.