Objective To investigate the diagnostic value of the real-time tissue elastography (RTE)and AST/PLT ratio in-dex (APRI)for the assessment of the early stage liver fibrosis in chronic liver disease patients.Methods Totally 90 patients with chronic liver disease were enrolled in the present study.The RTE score and the area percentage of the blue color (AREA,one of the elastic characteristics),the AST and PLT were recorded.Compared the results among different stages of liver fibrosis reported by biopsy considered as the gold standard for the assessment of liver fibrosis.The accuracy of the diagnosis of liver fibrosis by RTE scores,AREA and APRI were compared.Results RTE scores,AREA and APRI increased with the stage of liver fibrosis. Taking ≥S1 as the diagnosis standard of the early stage liver fibrosis,the area under the curve of ROC for RTE scores,AREA and APRI were 0.88,0.92,0.76 (P <0.05).Conclusion RTE is a new and promising sonography-based noninvasive method for the assessment of hepatic fibrosis in patients with chronic liver disease.Combined RTE with APRI have great clinical significance in di-agnosing the early stage liver fibrosis in chronic liver disease patients.