Fig. 3: Distribution and Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve Analyses for portal vein sclerosis and aberrant portal/periportal vessels.

Distribution of the percentage of portal tracts (PTs) with features of portal vein sclerosis (PVS) (a) or aberrant portal/periportal vessels (APV) (b) in idiopathic noncirrhotic portal hypertension (INCPH) and non-INCPH biopsies, showing significant association of PVS, but not APV, with INCPH. Box-and-whisker plots overlay the data. The central box represents the values from the lower to upper quartile (25th to 75th percentile). The middle line represents the median. The vertical line extends from the minimum to the maximum value, excluding outside and far out values which are displayed as separate points. Univariate logistic regression was performed to calculate p values. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to evaluate the performance of the percentage of PTs with PVS alone (c) or combined with the percentage of PTs with APV (d) in discriminating INCPH from non-INCPH. The former demonstrated a good performance (area under the curve = 0.8880) with an optimal cut-off point (maximal sum of sensitivity and specificity) of 8.3% when control group 2 was used, while addition of APV did not improve the performance. The performance was comparable when control group 1 was used (area under the curve = 0.8151 for PVS alone). Three pathologists independently performed the scoring of individual biopsies blinded to clinical and pathologic information.