Bedside ultrasound in the diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Steatotic Liver Disease and Its Newly Proposed Subclassification

Introduction

Steatotic liver disease (SLD) is a new overarching term proposed to replace nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease. Subclassification includes metabolic dysfunction-associated SLD (MASLD), MASLD with increased alcohol intake (MetALD), and cryptogenic SLD. This study aimed to investigate whether SLD and its subclassification could stratify hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk.

Methods

A cohort of 85,119 adults without viral hepatitis or heavy alcohol intake was analyzed for the risk of HCC according to SLD and its subclassification. The fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index was used to estimate the degree of liver fibrosis.

Results

During a median follow-up of 11.9 years, HCC was diagnosed in 123 individuals. The incidence rate of HCC per 1,000 person-years was higher in individuals with SLD than in those without SLD (0.197 vs. 0.071, p < 0.001), with an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.02 (95% confidence interval: 1.40-2.92). The HCC incidence rate per 1,000 person-years was 0, 0.180, and 0.648 for cryptogenic SLD, MASLD, and MetALD, respectively. When participants with SLD was further stratified by the FIB-4 index, the HCC incidence rate per 1,000 person-years was 0.074 for SLD with FIB-4 < 1.3 and 0.673 for SLD with FIB-4 ≥ 1.3. Of note, HCC risk was substantially high (HCC incidence rate: 1.847 per 1,000 person-years) for MetALD with FIB-4 ≥ 1.3.

Conclusions

HCC risk was different by SLD and its subclassification. The utilization of SLD and its subclassification can aid in stratifying HCC risk and facilitate the identification of individuals requiring interventions to mitigate the risk of HCC.

Ultrasound evaluation of chronic liver disease

Chronic liver disease is a world-wide epidemic. Any etiology that causes inflammation in the liver will lead to chronic liver disease. Presently, the most common inciting factor worldwide is steatotic liver disease. Recent advances in ultrasound imaging provide a multiparametric ultrasound methodology of diagnosing, staging, and monitoring treatment of chronic liver disease. Elastography has become a standard of care technique for the evaluation of liver fibrosis. Quantitative ultrasound allows for determination of the degree of fatty infiltration of the liver. Portal hypertension is the most important factor in determination of liver decompensation. B-mode findings combined with Doppler, and elastography techniques provide qualitative and quantitative methods of determining clinically significant portal hypertension. A newer method using contrast enhanced ultrasound may allow for a non-invasive quantitative estimation of the portal pressures. This paper reviews the use of multiparametric ultrasound in the evaluation of chronic liver disease including conventional B-mode ultrasound, Doppler, elastography and quantitative ultrasound for estimation of liver fat. The recent guidelines are presented and advised protocols reviewed.

Effects of MAFLD defined by fatty liver index or ultrasonography on kidney function decline in the general population

This study aimed to investigate whether metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) defined by the fatty liver index (FLI) affects the decline in kidney function and whether this relationship is still observed in MAFLD defined by ultrasonography (USG). A retrospective cohort study was conducted using de-identified data from participants who received health checkups at Samsung Changwon Hospital between 2002 and 2018. The primary and secondary exposures were the presence of FLI- and USG-defined MAFLD, respectively. The primary outcome was 5-years slope of eGFR. The secondary outcome was a rapid decline in kidney function, defined as a 5-years slope of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of less than - 3 mL/min/1.73 m2 per year. A total of 37,500 participants were included in the analysis. Participants with FLI-defined MAFLD had a larger decline in 5-year eGFR slope than those without FLI-defined MAFLD (beta coefficients - 0.11; 95% CI - 0.14 to - 0.08). Participants with FLI-defined MAFLD had a higher risk of rapid kidney function decline than those without FLI-defined MAFLD (odds ratio 1.33; 95% confidence intervals (CIs) 1.05-1.69). However, USG-defined MAFLD was less related to kidney function decline. In conclusion, the presence of FLI-defined MAFLD was associated with larger and faster kidney function decline.

Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in North East of Iran: a population-based study

BACKGROUND

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common dietary disorder caused by fatty changes in the liver parenchyma and hepatocytes without alcohol consumption. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors of NAFLD in the Mashhad Persian Cohort Study population.

METHOD

The present population-based cross-sectional study included all PERSIAN Organizational Cohort study in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (POCM), Mashhad, Iran by census sampling method. Eligible participants were divided into two groups due to their NAFLD condition (NAFLD positive or NAFLD negative). All enrolled participants were evaluated based on their clinical aspects, anthropometric measures, laboratory tests, and ultrasound features. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS software version 16 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA -version 16). A P-value less than 0.05 was considered as the significance level.

RESULTS

A total of 1198 individuals were included in the study, of which 638 (53.3%) were male and the rest were female. The mean age of the participants was 46.89 ± 8.98 years. A total of 246 patients (20.53%) were NAFLD positive, of which 122 (49.59%) were in grade 1, 112 (45.52%) were in grade 2, and 12 (4.87%) were in grade 3. The prevalence of fatty liver was significantly higher in males than in females (p < 0.001). There were significant differences between NAFLD positive and NAFLD negative participants in terms of having a history of hypertension (P = 0.044), body mass index (P < 0.001), body fat percentage (P = 0.001), waist circumference (P < 0.001), liver craniocaudal length (P = 0.012), fasting blood sugar (FBS) (P = 0.047), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (P = 0.007), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (P = 0.001). Further analysis revealed a strong significant association between BMI, previous history of hypertension, higher levels of serum ALT, and NAFLD (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

It can be concluded that ultrasound findings accompanied by laboratory AST and ALT level enzymes could be a cost-benefit approach for NAFLD early diagnosis. The craniocaudal size of the liver could be a beneficent marker for estimating the severity of the disease; however, more studies are recommended to evaluate this variable for future practice against the issue.

The association between score of plant-based diet and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in adults

BACKGROUND

Plant-based diet (PDI) as resource of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals, that was considered to protect against onset and development of Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

AIM

To investigate the association between plant-based diet and NAFLD in adults.

METHODS

The present case control study was conducted on 240 individuals (120 with NAFLD and 120 control) aged 20-69 years. Provided recommendations by the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Gastroenterological Association were used for NAFLD diagnosis. Dietary intake was assessed using 178-food item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Also, plant-based diet score was evaluated based on 18 food groups classified into animal foods, healthy and unhealthy plant foods. A multiple logistic regression model was used to examine the relationship between fatty liver disease and tertiles of PDI.

RESULTS

The results of this study showed that we did not observe any association between tertiles of PDI and NAFLD in crude model (OR: 1.29, 95%CI:0.66-2.52, P:0.44) and after adjustment for confounders including age, energy intake, physical activity, body mass index (OR:0.76, 95%CI: 0.31-1.86, P:0.52). Also, there were not any association of tertiles of healthy PDI (hPDI) (OR:1.14, 95%CI: 0.50-2.60, P:0.74) and unhealthy PDI (uhPDI) (OR:0.89, 95%CI:0.36-2.18, P: 0.79) with NAFLD after full adjustment for potential confounders.

CONCLUSION

There was not any association of PDI, hPDI, and uPDI with NAFLD in adults. More research needs to examine whether this specific diet may impact and improve NAFLD.

Associations of Adipocyte-derived Versican and Macrophage-derived Biglycan with Body Adipose Tissue and Hepatosteatosis in Obese Children

Objective

In animal models of obesity, adipocyte-derived versican, and macrophage-derived biglycan play a crucial role in mediating adipose tissue inflammation. The aim was to investigate levels of versican and biglycan in obese children and any potential association with body adipose tissue and hepatosteatosis.

Methods

Serum levels of versican, biglycan, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were measured by ELISA. Fat deposition in the liver, spleen, and subcutaneous adipose tissue was calculated using the IDEAL-IQ sequences in magnetic resonance images. Bioimpedance analysis was performed using the Tanita BC 418 MA device.

Results

The study included 36 obese and 30 healthy children. The age of obese children was 13.6 (7.5-17.9) years, while the age of normal weight children was 13.0 (7.2-17.9) years (p=0.693). Serum levels of versican, hsCRP, and IL-6 were higher in the obese group (p=0.044, p=0.039, p=0.024, respectively), while no significant difference was found in biglycan levels between the groups. There was a positive correlation between versican, biglycan, hsCRP, and IL-6 (r=0.381 p=0.002, r=0.281 p=0.036, rho=0.426 p=0.001, r=0.424 p=0.001, rho=0.305 p=0.017, rho=0.748 p<0.001, respectively). Magnetic resonance imaging revealed higher segmental and global hepatic steatosis in obese children. There was no relationship between hepatic fat content and versican, biglycan, IL-6, and hsCRP. Versican, biglycan, hsCRP, and IL-6 were not predictive of hepatosteatosis. Body fat percentage >32% provided a predictive sensitivity of 81.8% and a specificity of 70.5% for hepatosteatosis [area under the curve (AUC): 0.819, p<0.001]. Similarly, a body mass index standard deviation score >1.75 yielded a predictive sensitivity of 81.8% and a specificity of 69.8% for predicting hepatosteatosis (AUC: 0.789, p<0.001).

Conclusion

Obese children have higher levels of versican, hsCRP, and IL-6, and more fatty liver than their healthy peers.

Extent to which weight loss contributes to improving metabolic dysfunction-associated and metabolic and alcohol related/associated steatotic liver disease: a study on Japanese participants undergoing health checkups

Introduction

The incidence of steatotic liver disease has increased in recent years. Thus, steatotic liver disease is a major public health issue in Japan. This study investigated the association between weight reduction and the remission of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD)/Metabolic and alcohol related/associated liver disease (MetALD) in Japanese individuals undergoing health checkups.

Methods

This retrospective observational study included 8,707 Japanese patients with MASLD/MetALD who underwent health checkups from May 2015 to March 2023. The participants were monitored for its remission at their subsequent visit. MASLD was diagnosed on abdominal ultrasonography and based on the presence of at least one of five metabolic abnormalities. The impact of body mass index (BMI) reduction on MASLD/MetALD remission was assessed via logistic regression analysis and using receiver operating characteristic curves.

Results

Logistic regression analysis revealed that weight loss was significantly associated with MASLD/MetALD remission. Other factors including exercise habits and reduced alcohol consumption were significant predictors of MASLD/MetALD remission in the overall cohort and in male patients. The optimal BMI reduction cutoff values for MASLD/MetALD remission were 0.9 kg/m2 and 4.0% decrease in the overall cohort, 0.85 kg/m2 and 3.9% decrease in males, and 1.2 kg/m2 and 4.5% decrease in females. In participants with a BMI of 23 kg/m2, the cutoff values were 0.75 kg/m2 and 2.7% BMI reduction.

Discussion

Weight reduction plays an important role in both MASLD and MetALD remission among Japanese individuals. That is, targeting specific BMI reduction is effective. This underscores the importance of targeted weight management strategies in preventing and managing MASLD/MetALD in the Japanese population.

Ultrasonographic findings of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease: A comparative study with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and clinical characteristics

PURPOSE

Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a new term proposed to replace non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We analyzed the ultrasonographic findings of MAFLD and NAFLD.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of subjects aged ≥19 years who underwent a health screening examination, including ultrasonography, (n = 17,066). Patients were separated into one of three groups; pure MAFLD (n = 5304), pure NAFLD (n = 579), and both NAFLD & MAFLD (n = 11,183). The outcomes were the degree of fatty liver disease and liver cirrhosis, defined by ultrasonography. In addition, the risk of ultrasonographic cirrhosis was assessed in the MAFLD group based on clinical characteristics.

RESULTS

The pure NAFLD group had a lower risk of severe fatty liver disease than the both NAFLD & MAFLD groups (0.9 % vs. 4.4 %, p < 0.001). Cirrhosis was not diagnosed in the NAFLD group. Cirrhosis was more common in the pure MAFLD group than in the both NAFLD & MAFLD group (0.3 % vs. 0.0 %, p < 0.001). In the MAFLD group, multivariable analysis showed that diagnosis by hepatic steatosis index (Odds ratio [OR], 12.39; 95 % confidence interval [CI], 3.40-45.19; p < 0.001) or significant alcohol intake (OR, 9.58, 95 % CI, 1.93-47.61; p = 0.006) was independently associated with risk of liver cirrhosis on ultrasonography.

CONCLUSION

Liver cirrhosis was more frequently identified on ultrasonography in patients with MAFLD than in NAFLD. MAFLD diagnosed using the hepatic steatosis index or significant alcohol intake is a risk factor for liver cirrhosis.

The impact of stress on the behavior of C57BL/6 mice with liver injury: a comparative study

Introduction

Depressive-like behavior has been shown to be associated with liver damage. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of three different models of depression on the behavior of mice with liver injury.

Methods

During the 4 weeks of methionine/choline deficiency diet (MCD), adult C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into four groups: MCD (no stress protocol, n = 6), chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS, n = 9), acute and repeated forced swim stress [aFSS (n = 9) and rFSS (n = 9)].

Results

All depression protocols induced increased anhedonia and anxiety-like behavior compared to baseline and had no impact on the severity of liver damage, according to ultrasonography. However, different protocols evoked different overall behavior patterns. After the depressive-like behavior induction protocols, animals subjected to aFSS did not exhibit anxiety-like behavior differences compared to MCD animals, while mice subjected to CUMS showed additional weight loss compared to FSS animals. All tested protocols for inducing depressive-like behavior decreased the short-term memory of mice with liver damage, as assessed by the novel object recognition test (NORT).

Discussion

Our results show that the use of all protocols seems to generate different levels of anxiety-like behavior, but only the depressive-like behavior induction procedures associate additional anhedonia and memory impairment in mice with liver injury.

A 5G-based telerobotic ultrasound system provides qualified abdominal ultrasound services for patients on a rural island: a prospective and comparative study of 401 patients

PURPOSE

To explore the feasibility of a 5G-based telerobotic ultrasound (US) system for providing qualified abdominal US services on a rural island.

METHODS

This prospective study involved two medical centers (the tele-radiologist site's hospital and the patient site's hospital) separated by 72 km. Patients underwent 5G-based telerobotic US by tele-radiologists and conventional US by on-site radiologists from September 2020 to March 2021. The clinical feasibility and diagnostic performance of the 5G-based telerobotic abdominal US examination were assessed based on safety, duration, image quality, diagnostic findings, and questionnaires.

RESULTS

A total of 401 patients (217 women and 184 men; mean age, 54.96 ± 15.43 years) were enrolled. A total of 90.1% of patients indicated no discomfort with the telerobotic US examination. For the examination duration, telerobotic US took longer than conventional US (12.54 ± 3.20 min vs. 7.23 ± 2.10 min, p = 0.001). For image quality scores, the results of the two methods were similar (4.54 ± 0.63 vs. 4.57 ± 0.61, p = 0.112). No significant differences were found between the two methods in measurements for the aorta, portal vein, gallbladder, kidney (longitudinal diameter), prostate, and uterus; however, telerobotic US underestimated the transverse diameter of the kidney (p < 0.05). A total of 504 positive results, including 31 different diseases, were detected. Among them, 455 cases were identified by the two methods; 17 cases were identified by telerobotic US only; and 32 cases were identified by conventional US only. There was good consistency in the diagnosis of 29 types of disease between the two methods (κ = 0.773-1.000). Furthermore, more than 90% of patients accepted the telerobotic US examination and agreed to pay additional fees in future.

CONCLUSION

The 5G-based telerobotic US system can expand access to abdominal US services for patients in rural areas, thereby reducing health care disparities.

Enhanced non-alcoholic fatty liver detection: Computed tomography scan image analysis and noise reduction with morphological dilation

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by accumulation of fat in the liver cells caused by means other than alcohol consumption. It is one of the most common chronic liver diseases worldwide and can lead to severe conditions, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. NAFLD is often associated with other metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes, and is closely related to lifestyle factors, such as diet and physical activity [1]. The diagnosis as well as management of NAFLD are complex and involve a multidisciplinary approach. The available treatment options include lifestyle modifications, pharmacological interventions, and in severe cases, liver transplantation. The increasing prevalence of NAFLD highlights the urgent requirement of effective prevention and management strategies. This disease is a growing health concern in India, given the rise in the incidence of obesity and diabetes. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology in 2020, the prevalence of NAFLD in India is estimated to be between 9% and 32%. In accordance with the research population and diagnostic criteria employed, a study published in the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology in 2019 found that the prevalence of NAFLD in India ranged from 9.6% to 32.3% [2]. The same study also revealed that the prevalence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a highly severe form of NAFLD, ranged from 1.5% to 8.4%. These statistics highlight the need for increased awareness and preventive measures to manage the growing burden of NAFLD in India.

Improving nonalcoholic fatty liver disease classification performance with latent diffusion models

Integrating deep learning with clinical expertise holds great potential for addressing healthcare challenges and empowering medical professionals with improved diagnostic tools. However, the need for annotated medical images is often an obstacle to leveraging the full power of machine learning models. Our research demonstrates that by combining synthetic images, generated using diffusion models, with real images, we can enhance nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) classification performance even in low-data regime settings. We evaluate the quality of the synthetic images by comparing two metrics: Inception Score (IS) and Fréchet Inception Distance (FID), computed on diffusion- and generative adversarial network (GAN)-generated images. Our results show superior performance for the diffusion-generated images, with a maximum IS score of 1.90 compared to 1.67 for GANs, and a minimum FID score of 69.45 compared to 100.05 for GANs. Utilizing a partially frozen CNN backbone (EfficientNet v1), our synthetic augmentation method achieves a maximum image-level ROC AUC of 0.904 on a NAFLD prediction task.

The relative contributions of soft tissue mass components as risk or protective factors of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in children

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE

Several body components are known to be associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children. However, the relative contributions of soft tissue mass components as risk or protective factors of NAFLD are largely unknown because measurements of these components are often highly correlated. Therefore, we aimed to estimate levels of association between soft tissue mass components and NAFLD.

SUBJECTS/METHODS

We collected the medical records of 555 Chinese children (aged 3-18 years). Five mutually exclusive and exhaustive components of soft tissue mass were measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. NAFLD was diagnosed with abdominal B-ultrasound scan. We fit Dirichlet regression and multivariate linear regression models wherein age and NAFLD were used as predictors of the proportional measurements of soft tissue mass components.

RESULTS

The proportion of android fat was significantly higher in children with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD (ratio of proportions ranged from 1.18 to 1.30), whereas proportions of trunk lean and limb lean were significantly lower (ratio of proportions ranged from 0.87 to 0.92 for trunk lean and from 0.82 to 0.91 for limb lean). The proportion of gynoid fat was slightly higher in boys with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD (ratio = 1.05), but this proportion was not significantly higher in girls. The association between the proportion of android fat and NAFLD appeared to be somewhat greater than the associations between proportions of trunk lean or limb lean components and NAFLD.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that lowering fat mass and increasing lean mass can both be used to combat NAFLD in children and that more studies are needed to determine the association between gynoid fat and NAFLD.

Fatty liver biomarkers and insulin resistance indices in the prediction of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in Ghanaian patients

BACKGROUND

Scant West African data on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) means there is little representation of this population in the modelling used to derive biomarkers and predictive indices for risk stratification of patients for the presence of hepatic steatosis. This study evaluates the performance of the fatty liver index (FLI), hepatic steatosis index (HSI) and triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index and its derivatives in predicting ultrasound detected NAFLD in a locally resident population of Ghanaian participants.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

A post hoc analysis of data from a cross sectional assessment of NAFLD and cardiovascular risk was performed. Data from 210 participants without significant alcohol intake, or secondary causes of fatty liver and not on steatogenic drugs was evaluated. A structured questionnaire had been used to collect demographic data, medical and drug history. Anthropometry, blood sampling for liver chemistry and fasting lipids were performed. Hepatic steatosis was detected by ultrasonography. A retrospective analysis involving multivariate binary logistic regression assessed FLI, HIS, TyG (and its derivatives) as predictors of NAFLD with p < .05 considered statistically significant. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratios were calculated and accuracy of the proxies evaluated from area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC). All the biomarkers and indices were significantly associated with NAFLD (p ≤ .001). All the lipid and fatty liver indices assessed performed acceptably as predictors of NAFLD. FLI (AUC = 0.8, 95% CI [0.74-0.87]), TyG-WC (AUC = 0.81, 95% CI [0.75-0.88]) and TyG-WHtR (AUC = 0.81, 95% CI [0.74-0.88]) performed best at predicting NAFLD. Whilst in all cases the markers had good specificity (>90%) they lacked sufficient sensitivity with FLI having the highest sensitivity of 36.7%. Their overall accuracy was greater than 70% in each case.

CONCLUSION

The overall accuracy of HSI, FLI, TyG index and its derivatives (TyG WHtR, TyG BMI, TyG WC) was acceptable for predicting NAFLD in this population. Given their performance in this study and in light of their low cost, accessibility, easy interpretation and non-invasive nature; they are suitable tools for screening in the Ghanaian population.

Sex differences in the association between adipose insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in Chinese adults

BACKGROUND

Adipose insulin resistance (Adipo-IR) is associated with multiple metabolic diseases, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The study aimed to evaluate sex differences in the association between Adipo-IR and NAFLD, and further investigated other potential modifiers.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study enrolled adults without diabetes who underwent physical examinations in Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital. We calculated the Adipo-IR index as the product of the fasting insulin and free fatty acid concentration. We categorized Adipo-IR into four groups according to quartiles, using the first interquartile range (Q1) as the reference. Logistic regression was used stratified by the modifiers after adjustment for potential confounders.

RESULTS

There were 5586 participants in the study, 49.8% (n = 2781) of whom were women and 30.4% (n = 1698) with NAFLD. There was a graded positive association between Adipo-IR and NAFLD, with sex (P = 0.01) and hyperlipidemia (P = 0.02) modifying this association. In the hyperlipidemic women, for one unit increase in log-Adipo-IR, the odds of having NAFLD increased by 385% after adjustment for potential confounders (OR = 4.85, 95%CI 3.54-6.73, P < 0.001). However, it turned out that the odds of having NAFLD increased by 131% (OR = 2.31, 95%CI 1.74-3.11, P < 0.001), 216% (OR = 3.16, 95%CI 2.56-3.93, P < 0.001), 181% (OR = 2.81, 95%CI 1.88-4.28, P < 0.001) in normolipidemic men, hyperlipidemic men, and normolipidemic women, respectively. Similarly, the ORs for the association between Adipo-IR and NAFLD in women with age ≥ 50 years were higher than ORs in women with age < 50 years.

CONCLUSIONS

The positive correlation between Adipo-IR and NAFLD was stronger in hyperlipidemic women, compared with normolipidemic or hyperlipidemic men, or normolipidemic women. The association also strengthened for women over 50 years. Treatment strategies targeting Adipo-IR to alleviate NAFLD may be of value, especially in hyperlipidemic women after menopause.

Beyond conventional physical examination in hepatology: POCUS

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) refers to the use of ultrasound imaging through pocket-sized sonographic devices at the patient's bedside, to make a diagnosis or direct a procedure and immediately answer a clinical question. Its goal is to broaden the physical examination, not to replace conventional ultrasound studies. POCUS has evolved as a complement to physical examination and has been adopted by different medical specialties, including hepatology. A narrative synthesis of the evidence on the applications of POCUS in hepatology was carried out, describing its usefulness in the diagnosis of cirrhosis of the liver, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), decompensated cirrhosis, and portal hypertension. The review also encompasses more recent applications in the hemodynamic evaluation of the critically ill patient with cirrhosis of the liver, patients with other liver diseases, as well as in the ultrasound guidance of procedures. POCUS could make up part of the daily clinical practice of gastroenterologists and hepatologists, simplifying the initial evaluation of patients and optimizing clinical management. Its accessibility, ease of use, and low adverse event profile make POCUS a useful tool for the properly trained physician in the adequate clinical setting. The aim of this review was to describe the available evidence on the usefulness of POCUS in the daily clinical practice of gastroenterologists and hepatologists.

Ultrasound Shear Wave Attenuation Imaging for Grading Liver Steatosis in Volunteers and Patients With Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Pilot Study

OBJECTIVE

The aims of the work described here were to assess shear wave attenuation (SWA) in volunteers and patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and compare its diagnostic performance with that of shear wave dispersion (SWD), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and biopsy.

METHODS

Forty-nine participants (13 volunteers and 36 NAFLD patients) were enrolled. Ultrasound and MRI examinations were performed in all participants. Biopsy was also performed in patients. SWA was used to assess histopathology grades as potential confounders. The areas under curves (AUCs) of SWA, SWD and MRI-PDFF were assessed in different steatosis grades by biopsy. Youden's thresholds of SWA were obtained for steatosis grading while using biopsy or MRI-PDFF as the reference standard.

RESULTS

Spearman's correlations of SWA with histopathology (steatosis, inflammation, ballooning and fibrosis) were 0.89, 0.73, 0.62 and 0.31, respectively. Multiple linear regressions of SWA confirmed the correlation with steatosis grades (adjusted R2 = 0.77, p < 0.001). The AUCs of MRI-PDFF, SWA and SWD were respectively 0.97, 0.99 and 0.94 for S0 versus ≥S1 (p > 0.05); 0.94, 0.98 and 0.78 for ≤S1 versus ≥S2 (both MRI-PDFF and SWA were higher than SWD, p < 0.05); and 0.90, 0.93 and 0.68 for ≤S2 versus S3 (both SWA and MRI-PDFF were higher than SWD, p < 0.05). SWA's Youden thresholds (Np/m/Hz) (sensitivity, specificity) for S0 versus ≥S1, ≤S1 versus ≥S2 and ≤S2 versus S3 were 1.05 (1.00, 0.92), 1.37 (0.96, 0.96) and 1.51 (0.83, 0.87), respectively. These values were 1.16 (1.00, 0.81), 1.49 (0.91, 0.82) and 1.67 (0.87, 0.92) when considering MRI-PDFF as the reference standard.

CONCLUSION

In this pilot study, SWA increased with increasing steatosis grades, and its diagnostic performance was higher than that of SWD but equivalent to that of MRI-PDFF.

Utility of Indices Obtained during Medical Checkups for Predicting Fatty Liver Disease in Non-obese People

Objective To predict fatty liver disease (FLD), including nonalcoholic FLD (NAFLD) and metabolic dysfunction-associated FLD (MAFLD), from blood tests and anthropometric measurements, the fatty liver index (FLI) and triglyceride glucose-body mass index (TyG-BMI) have been reported as promising indicators. We evaluated the predictive ability of several indices, including the waist circumference, BMI, FLI and TyG-BMI, that might predict FLD in non-obese individuals undergoing health checkups. Methods This retrospective observational study enrolled non-obese subjects who underwent abdominal ultrasonography between May 1, 2015, and June 30, 2022. Obesity was defined as a BMI <25 kg/m2. FLD was diagnosed by abdominal ultrasonography. Using a receiver operating characteristic analysis, we examined the predictive validity of indices for NAFLD and MAFLD by calculating the area under the curve (AUC). Results Of the 24,825 subjects (mean age 44.3±10.0 years old; 54% men) enrolled in this examination of the association of indices, including FLI and TyG-BMI, with NAFLD, NAFLD was diagnosed in 3,619 (27%) men and 733 (6%) women. In both men and women, the FLI and TyG-BMI had significantly higher AUC values for NAFLD prediction than the other indicators (FLI: 0.786 for men and 0.875 for women, TyG-BMI: 0.783 for men and 0.868 for women). In analyses of subjects with a BMI <23 kg/m2, the superiority of the FLI and TyG-BMI remained unchanged. The FLI and TyG-BMI also had significantly higher AUC values for MAFLD prediction than the other indicators. Conclusion The FLI and TyG-BMI had a particularly high predictive ability for NAFLD and MAFLD in non-obese subjects.

Association between follicle-stimulating hormone and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) was negatively associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in women older than 55 years old. People with obesity and diabetes had higher prevalence of NAFLD. Thus, we aimed to explore the association between FSH and NAFLD in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

METHODS

A total of 583 postmenopausal women with T2DM with an average age of 60.22 ± 6.49 were recruited in this cross-sectional study through January 2017 to May 2021. Anthropological data, biochemical indexes, and abdominal ultrasound results were retrospectively collected. Abdominal ultrasound was used to diagnose NAFLD. FSH was measured by enzymatic immunochemiluminescence and divided into tertiles for further analysis. The logistic regression was used to assess the association of FSH with prevalent NAFLD. Likelihood ratio tests were used to assess the interactions between groups.

RESULTS

A total of 332 (56.94%) postmenopausal women had NAFLD. Compared with postmenopausal women in the lowest tertile of FSH, postmenopausal women in the highest tertile of FSH had lower prevalence of NAFLD (p < .01). After adjusting for age, diabetes duration, metabolism-related indicators, and other sex-related hormones, FSH was inversely associated with NAFLD (odds ratio: 0.411, 95% confidence intervals: 0.260-0.651, p < .001). In subgroup analysis, there were no significant interactions of FSH with strata of metabolic factors on the association of NAFLD.

CONCLUSION

FSH was negatively and independently associated with NAFLD in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus. It might be a potential index for screening and identifying individuals with high risk of NAFLD in postmenopausal women.

Bio-Inspired Network for Diagnosing Liver Steatosis in Ultrasound Images

Using ultrasound imaging to diagnose liver steatosis is of great significance for preventing diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Accurate diagnosis under conditions of low quality, noise and poor resolutions is still a challenging task. Physiological studies have shown that the visual cortex of the biological visual system has selective attention neural mechanisms and feedback regulation of high features to low features. When processing visual information, these cortical regions selectively focus on more sensitive information and ignore unimportant details, which can effectively extract important features from visual information. Inspired by this, we propose a new diagnostic network for hepatic steatosis. In order to simulate the selection mechanism and feedback regulation of the visual cortex in the ventral pathway, it consists of a receptive field feature extraction module, parallel attention module and feedback connection. The receptive field feature extraction module corresponds to the inhibition of the non-classical receptive field of V1 neurons on the classical receptive field. It processes the input image to suppress the unimportant background texture. Two types of attention are adopted in the parallel attention module to process the same visual information and extract different important features for fusion, which improves the overall performance of the model. In addition, we construct a new dataset of fatty liver ultrasound images and validate the proposed model on this dataset. The experimental results show that the network has good performance in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for the diagnosis of fatty liver disease.

Accuracy of ultrasonographic fatty liver index using point-of-care ultrasound in stratifying non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasing in the USA. Some of these patients develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which can progress to cirrhosis. Ultrasound imaging is one of the most used modalities for diagnosing hepatic steatosis. Primary care providers are increasingly using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), which could increase the number of subjects diagnosed with NAFLD. This study evaluates the accuracy of POCUS in identifying patients with NASH.

METHODS

Patients with hepatic steatosis without excess alcohol intake or other liver diseases undergoing liver biopsy were included in this study. These patients underwent POCUS and vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) evaluations within 3 months of a liver biopsy. A comparison of POCUS data with liver histology and VCTE were made to assess the validity of POCUS evaluation in diagnosing NAFLD and NASH.

RESULTS

The steatosis score from the liver histology had a low correlation with the controlled attenuation parameter score from VCTE ( r  = 0.27) and a moderate correlation with the grade of steatosis detected by the POCUS exam ( r  = 0.57). The NAFLD activity score on histology was found to correlate with the ultrasonographic fatty liver index (USFLI) from the POCUS exam ( r  = 0.59). A USFLI ≥ 6 diagnosed NASH with a sensitivity of 81%, and a value of ≤3 ruled out the diagnosis of NASH with a sensitivity of 100%.

CONCLUSION

The provider can use the POCUS exam in clinical practice to diagnose NAFLD and reliably stratify patients who have NASH.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in hemochromatosis probands with iron overload and HFE p.C282Y/p.C282Y

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to identify characteristics of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adults with HFE p.C282Y/p.C282Y.

METHODS

We retrospectively studied non-Hispanic white hemochromatosis probands with iron overload (serum ferritin (SF) > 300 µg/L (M), > 200 µg/L (F)) and p.C282Y/p.C282Y at non-screening diagnosis who did not report alcohol consumption > 14 g/d, have cirrhosis or other non-NAFLD liver disorders, use steatogenic medication, or have diagnoses of heritable disorders that increase NAFLD risk. We identified NAFLD-associated characteristics using univariate and multivariable analyses.

RESULTS

There were 66 probands (31 men, 35 women), mean age 49 ± 14 (SD) y, of whom 16 (24.2%) had NAFLD. The following characteristics were higher in probands with NAFLD: median SF (1118 µg/L (range 259, 2663) vs. 567 µg/L (247, 2385); p = 0.0192); prevalence of elevated ALT/AST (alanine/aspartate aminotransferase) (43.8% vs. 10.0%; p = 0.0056); and prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) (31.3% vs. 10.0%; p = 0.0427). Mean age, sex, and prevalences of human leukocyte antigen-A*03 positivity, body mass index ≥ 30.0 kg/m², hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome in probands with/without NAFLD did not differ significantly. Logistic regression on NAFLD using variables SF, elevated ALT/AST, and T2DM revealed: SF (p = 0.0318; odds ratio 1.0-1.0) and T2DM (p = 0.0342; 1.1-22.3). Median iron removed to achieve iron depletion (QFe) in probands with/without NAFLD did not differ significantly (3.6 g (1.4-7.2 g) vs. 2.8 g (0.7-11.0 g), respectively; p = 0.6862).

CONCLUSIONS

NAFLD in hemochromatosis probands with p.C282Y/p.C282Y is associated with higher median SF and greater T2DM prevalence, after adjustment for other factors. NAFLD does not influence QFe significantly.

Application of machine learning in predicting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease using anthropometric and body composition indices

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease, which can progress from simple steatosis to advanced cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Clinical diagnosis of NAFLD is crucial in the early stages of the disease. The main aim of this study was to apply machine learning (ML) methods to identify significant classifiers of NAFLD using body composition and anthropometric variables. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 513 individuals aged 13 years old or above in Iran. Anthropometric and body composition measurements were performed manually using body composition analyzer InBody 270. Hepatic steatosis and fibrosis were determined using a Fibroscan. ML methods including k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Radial Basis Function (RBF) SVM, Gaussian Process (GP), Random Forest (RF), Neural Network (NN), Adaboost and Naïve Bayes were examined for model performance and to identify anthropometric and body composition predictors of fatty liver disease. RF generated the most accurate model for fatty liver (presence of any stage), steatosis stages and fibrosis stages with 82%, 52% and 57% accuracy, respectively. Abdomen circumference, waist circumference, chest circumference, trunk fat and body mass index were among the most important variables contributing to fatty liver disease. ML-based prediction of NAFLD using anthropometric and body composition data can assist clinicians in decision making. ML-based systems provide opportunities for NAFLD screening and early diagnosis, especially in population-level and remote areas.

Machine learning classifiers for screening nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in general adults

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of major causes of end-stage liver disease in the coming decades, but it shows few symptoms until it develops into cirrhosis. We aim to develop classification models with machine learning to screen NAFLD patients among general adults. This study included 14,439 adults who took health examination. We developed classification models to classify subjects with or without NAFLD using decision tree, random forest (RF), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and support vector machine (SVM). The classifier with SVM was showed the best performance with the highest accuracy (0.801), positive predictive value (PPV) (0.795), F1 score (0.795), Kappa score (0.508) and area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) (0.712), and the second top of area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) (0.850). The second-best classifier was RF model, which was showed the highest AUROC (0.852) and the second top of accuracy (0.789), PPV (0.782), F1 score (0.782), Kappa score (0.478) and AUPRC (0.708). In conclusion, the classifier with SVM is the best one to screen NAFLD in general population based on the results from physical examination and blood testing, followed by the classifier with RF. Those classifiers have a potential to screen NAFLD in general population for physician and primary care doctors, which could benefit to NAFLD patients from early diagnosis.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in diabetes mellitus patients on chronic hemodialysis – A case series addressing cardiovascular and mortality risks

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has an important role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases in the population with diabetes and it is highly prevalent in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. This case series describes NAFLD associated factors and survival in type 2 diabetes patients (T2DM) who have ESRD treated with hemodialysis. NAFLD prevalence in patients with T2DM and ESRD is 69.2%. A high number of patients (15 out of 18) have obesity evaluated by calculating body mass index (BMI) and bioimpedance measurements. Patients with NAFLD have higher cardiovascular mortality risk, 13 of 18 patients were already diagnosed with coronary heart disease, 6 of 18 had cerebrovascular disease, and 6 of 18 had peripheral artery disease. Fourteen patients were treated with insulin, two patients with sitagliptin (renal adjusted dose of 25mg/day) and two patients with medical nutrition therapy, with an HbA1c ranging from 4.4 to 9.0%. After one-year follow-up 7 of 18 patients died, the causes having roughly equal proportions: myocardial infarction, SARS-CoV2 infection, and pulmonary edema. In conclusion, our population of type 2 diabetic patients with ESRD in hemodialysis had a prevalence of ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD of 69.2%. Also, this population had a high death rate at one-year follow-up, cardiovascular causes being among the most common.

Acoustic Attenuation and Dispersion in Fatty Tissues and Tissue Phantoms Influencing Ultrasound Biomedical Imaging

The development of ultrasonic imaging techniques is optimized using artificial tissue phantoms before the practical applications. However, due to the strong attenuation and dispersion, accumulated fatty tissues can significantly impact the resolution and even feasibility of certain ultrasonic imaging modalities. An appropriate characterization of the acoustic properties on fatty phantoms can help the community to overcome the limitations. Some of the existing methods heavily overestimate attenuation coefficients by including the reflection loss and dispersion effects. Hence, in this study, we use numerical simulation-based comparison between two major attenuation measurement configurations. We further pointed out the pulse dispersion in viscoelastic tissue phantoms by simulations, which barely attracted attention in the existing studies. Using the selected attenuation and dispersion testing methods that were selected from the numerical simulation, we experimentally characterized the acoustic properties of common fatty tissue phantoms and compared the acoustic properties with the natural porcine fatty tissue samples. Furthermore, we selected one of the tissue phantoms to construct ultrasound imaging samples with some biomasses. With the known attenuation and dispersion of the tissue phantom, we showed the clarity enhancement of ultrasound imaging by signal post-processing to weaken the attenuation and dispersion effects.

Imaging Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Model Using H-1 and F-19 MRI

PURPOSE

We explore the use of intravenously delivered perfluorocarbon (PFC) nanoemulsion and ¹⁹F MRI for detecting inflammation in a mouse model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Correlative studies of ¹H-based liver proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and T₁ measurements and histology are also evaluated.

PROCEDURES

C57BL/6 mice were fed standard or high-fat diet (HFD) for 6 weeks to induce NAFLD. ¹H MRI measurements of PDFF and T₁ relaxation time were performed at baseline to assess NAFLD onset prior to administration of a PFC nanoemulsion to enable ¹⁹F MRI of liver PFC uptake. ¹H and ¹⁹F MRI biomarkers were acquired at 2, 21, and 42 days post-PFC to assess changes. Histopathology of liver tissue was performed at experimental endpoint.

RESULTS

Significant increases in liver volume, PDFF, and total PFC uptake were noted in HFD mice compared to Std diet mice. Liver fluorine density and T₁ relaxation time were significantly reduced in HFD mice.

CONCLUSIONS

We demonstrated longitudinal quantification of multiple MRI biomarkers of disease in NAFLD mice. The changes in liver PFC uptake in HFD mice were compared with healthy mice that suggests that ¹⁹F MRI may be a viable biomarker of liver pathology.

Deep-learning-based hepatic fat assessment (DeHFt) on non-contrast chest CT and its association with disease severity in COVID-19 infections: A multi-site retrospective study

BACKGROUND

Hepatic steatosis (HS) identified on CT may provide an integrated cardiometabolic and COVID-19 risk assessment. This study presents a deep-learning-based hepatic fat assessment (DeHFt) pipeline for (a) more standardised measurements and (b) investigating the association between HS (liver-to-spleen attenuation ratio <1 in CT) and COVID-19 infections severity, wherein severity is defined as requiring invasive mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, death.

METHODS

DeHFt comprises two steps. First, a deep-learning-based segmentation model (3D residual-UNet) is trained (N.ß=.ß80) to segment the liver and spleen. Second, CT attenuation is estimated using slice-based and volumetric-based methods. DeHFt-based mean liver and liver-to-spleen attenuation are compared with an expert's ROI-based measurements. We further obtained the liver-to-spleen attenuation ratio in a large multi-site cohort of patients with COVID-19 infections (D1, N.ß=.ß805; D2, N.ß=.ß1917; D3, N.ß=.ß169) using the DeHFt pipeline and investigated the association between HS and COVID-19 infections severity.

FINDINGS

The DeHFt pipeline achieved a dice coefficient of 0.95, 95% CI [0.93...0.96] on the independent validation cohort (N.ß=.ß49). The automated slice-based and volumetric-based liver and liver-to-spleen attenuation estimations strongly correlated with expert's measurement. In the COVID-19 cohorts, severe infections had a higher proportion of patients with HS than non-severe infections (pooled OR.ß=.ß1.50, 95% CI [1.20...1.88], P.ß<.ß.001).

INTERPRETATION

The DeHFt pipeline enabled accurate segmentation of liver and spleen on non-contrast CTs and automated estimation of liver and liver-to-spleen attenuation ratio. In three cohorts of patients with COVID-19 infections (N.ß=.ß2891), HS was associated with disease severity. Pending validation, DeHFt provides an automated CT-based metabolic risk assessment.

FUNDING

For a full list of funding bodies, please see the Acknowledgements.

The effect of a fruit-rich diet on liver biomarkers, insulin resistance, and lipid profile in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND

Despite confirmed dietary approaches to improve the Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), the effect of fruits on NAFLD is not clear. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a fruit rich diet (FRD) on liver steatosis, liver enzymes, Insulin resistance, and lipid profile in patients with NAFLD.

METHODS

Eighty adults with NAFLD participated in this randomized controlled trial. The participants were randomly assigned to the FRD group with consumption of at least 4 servings of fruits daily or the control group with fruits consumption of less than 2 servings/day. The grade of steatosis, serum levels of liver enzymes including alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), glucose, and homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were measured at the baseline and at the end of the study.

RESULTS

After 6 months of intervention, the FRD group had significantly higher BMI (31.40 ± 2.61 vs. 25.68 ± 2.54, p < .001), WC (113.5 ± 10.7 vs. 100.5 ± 7.5, p < .001), the grade of steatosis, ALT (89.1 ± 92.9 vs. 32.0 ± 19.2, p < .001), AST (74.5 ± 107.8 vs. 24.0 ± 8.5, p < .001), ALP (273.4 ± 128.5 vs. 155.0 ± 43.9, p < .001), GGT (92.7 ± 16.2 vs. 21.2 ± 7.7, p < .001), TC (206.1 ± 40.5 vs. 172.7 ± 42.4, p < .01), LDL (126.9 ± 32.3 vs. 99.8 ± 29.8, p < .001), glucose (115.5 ± 30.0 vs. 97.7 ± 19.0, p < .01), and insulin resistance (7.36 ± 4.37 vs. 2.66 ± 1.27, p < .001), and lower HDL (41.4 ± 8.9 vs. 53.8 ± 15.1, p < .001) compared to the control group. Adjusting for BMI and calorie intake did not change the results.

CONCLUSION

The results of the present study indicated that consumption of fruits more than 4 servings/day exacerbates steatosis, dyslipidemia, and glycemic control in NAFLD patients. Further studies are needed to identify the underlying mechanisms of the effects of fruits on NAFLD.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

This trial was registered at Iranian randomized clinical trial website with IRCT registration no. IRCT20201010048982N1on October 15, 2020.

Fatty Liver Index is a valid predictor of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in pregnancy

BACKGROUND

Despite the evidence for adverse pregnancy outcomes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is not routinely addressed in early pregnancy. The Fatty Liver Index (FLI) has been proposed as a screening tool for NAFLD in the general population. We aim to develop mathematical models for predicting NAFLD in pregnancy and validate the FLI for first-trimester pregnant women.

METHODS

Biochemical and biophysical parameters were analysed in pregnant women with period of gestation <12 weeks was done among Rajarata Pregnancy Cohort, Sri Lanka. Fatty liver was graded as (FLG) 0, I or II by ultrasound scan. Binary logistic regression models were employed to identify the factors predicting FLG-II. Six FLIs were developed to predict FLG-II. Validity of the FLIs was compared using the receiver operating characteristic curves.

RESULTS

The study sample consisted of 632 pregnant women with a mean age of 28.8 years (SD: 5.8 years). Age (OR: 1.6, 95% CI 1.1 to 2.3), body mass index (OR: 1.7, 95% CI 1.1 to 2.5) and gamma-glutamyl transferase levels (OR: 2.1, 95% CI 1.5 to 3.0) were the independent predictors of FLG-II. While the model with liver enzymes provided the best prediction of NAFLD (both FLG I and II) (area under the curve [(AUC]): -0.734), the highest AUC (0.84) for predicting FLG-II was observed with the full model (model with all parameters). The proposed budget model (AUC >0.81) is the best model for screening fatty liver in community health setup.

CONCLUSION

FLIs could be used as screening tools for NAFLD based on resource availability in different settings. External validation of the FLI and further investigation of the proposed FLI as a predictor of adverse pregnancy outcomes are recommended.

Effects of Different Scan Projections on the Quantitative Ultrasound-Based Evaluation of Hepatic Steatosis

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming a global public health issue and the identification of the steatosis severity is very important for the patients’ health. Ultrasound (US) images of 214 patients were acquired in two different scan views (subcostal and intercostal). A classification of the level of steatosis was made by a qualitative evaluation of the liver ultrasound images. Furthermore, an US image processing algorithm provided quantitative parameters (hepatic–renal ratio (HR) and Steato-score) designed to quantifying the fatty liver content. The aim of the study is to evaluate the differences in the assessment of hepatic steatosis acquiring and processing different US scan views. No significant differences were obtained calculating the HR and the Steato-score parameters, not even with the classification of patients on the basis of body mass index (BMI) and of different classes of steatosis severity. Significant differences between the two parameters were found only for patients with absence or mild level of steatosis. These results show that the two different scan projections do not greatly affect HR and the Steato-score assessment. Accordingly, the US-based steatosis assessment is independent from the view of the acquisitions, thus making the subcostal and intercostal scans interchangeable, especially for patients with moderate and severe steatosis.

Association Between Non-invasive Diagnostic Methods of Liver Fibrosis and Type 2 Diabetes in Pediatric Patients With Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children has been increasing associated with insulin resistance. However, there is a scarcity of related studies in children with NAFLD with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) compared to adults. We conducted this study to investigate the association between non-invasive diagnostic methods of liver fibrosis and T2DM in pediatric patients with NAFLD.

METHODS

We enrolled a total of 152 patients aged <18 years with NAFLD, and compared their data according to the presence of T2DM. We evaluated fibrosis by transient elastography (TE, FibroScan®), and calculated the following fibrosis scores for each patient: NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS), AST: platelet ratio index (APRI), Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index, and pediatric NAFLD fibrosis index (PNFI).

RESULTS

In the NAFLD-T2DM group, the NFS and mean controlled attenuation parameter in FibroScan were significantly higher than those in the nondiabetic group. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve values for predicting the presence of T2DM were 0.78 for NFS, 0.64 for FIB-4, 0.62 for PNFI, and 0.61 for APRI. The cutoff HbA1c levels for predicting fibrosis progression in APRI, NFS, and PNFI were 5.7% [area under the curve (AUC) 0.74], 6.4% (AUC 0.71), and 6.4% (AUC 0.55), respectively. In the multivariate analysis, hepatosteatosis on abdomen sonography, NFS, FibroScan F, and APRI were independently associated with T2DM risk.

CONCLUSIONS

We significantly characterized non-invasive fibrosis markers and elastography in pediatric NAFLD with T2DM compared with the nondiabetic group. We suggest evaluating the progression of fibrosis in the prediabetic stage in children using a combination of these non-invasive methods.

Determination of “indeterminate score” measurements in lean nonalcoholic fatty liver disease patients from western Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND

Noninvasive measures to estimate liver fibrosis in lieu of biopsy in nonalcoholic liver disease (NAFLD) can broadly differentiate high vs low degrees of condition extent. However, an “indeterminate score” necessitates further clinical investigation and biopsy becomes essential, highlighting the need for identification of other noninvasive factors with accuracy for this midlevel extent and its prognosis. Lean NAFLD cases are of particular interest regarding this issue, as they present as otherwise healthy, and will benefit greatly from the less invasive assessment.

AIM

To estimate the agreement of two noninvasive assessment tools in lean NAFLD patients, and assess factors related to indeterminate scores.

METHODS

Ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD patients, without sign of other chronic liver disease (n = 1262), were enrolled from a tertiary private medical centre between 2016-2019. After grouping by body mass index (obese, overweight, and lean), each participant underwent FibroScan. NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) was used for subclassification (lower, higher, and indeterminate). No patient underwent liver biopsy. The kappa statistic was used to assess inter-rater agreement between the three groups on liver fibrosis degree assessed via FibroScan and NFS. Indeterminate score among the three groups was assessed to identify factors that predict its determination.

RESULTS

The NAFLD study cohort was composed of lean (159/1262, 12.6%), overweight (365/1262, 29%) and obese (737/1262, 58.4%) individuals. The lean patients were significantly younger (49.95 ± 15.3 years, P < 0.05), with higher serum high density lipoprotein (52.56 ± 16.27 mg/dL, P < 0.001) and lower prevalences of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia. All groups showed a predominance of lower fibrosis degree. The lean NAFLD patients showed a significantly lower NFS (P < 0.001). Degree of agreement between FibroScan and NFS was fair between the lean and obese NAFLD categories, and moderate in the overweight category. NFS was predictive of indeterminate score. Age was a factor among all the body mass index (BMI) categories; other associated factors, but with less strength, were serum alanine aminotransferase in the overweight category and BMI in the obese category.

CONCLUSION

Lean NAFLD patients showed lower degree and prevalence of liver fibrosis by NFS; however, follow-up biopsy is still needed.

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and Bariatric/Metabolic Surgery as Its Treatment Option: A Review

The prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has considerably increased over the last years. NAFLD is currently the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the developing world. The diagnosis of NAFLD/NASH is often incidental, as the early-stage of disease is frequently free of symptoms. Most patients recognized with NAFLD have severe obesity and other obesity-related disease such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), insulin-resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension. The only proven method for NAFLD improvement and resolution is weight loss. Bariatric surgery leads to significant and long-term weight loss as well as improvement of coexisting diseases. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that metabolic/bariatric surgery is an effective method of NAFLD treatment that leads to reduction in steatosis, hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. However, there is still a need to perform long-term studies in order to determine the role of bariatric surgery as a treatment option for NAFLD and NASH. This review discusses current evidence about epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment options for NAFLD including bariatric/metabolic surgery and its effect on improvement and resolution of NAFLD.

NFI, a clinical scoring tool for predicting non-alcoholic fatty liver in the Chinese population

OBJECTIVES

Accurate assessment of early non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is important to reduce the possible complications. The purpose of the present study was to develop a simple algorithm for the screening of NAFLD in the Chinese population based on routine anthropometric data and laboratory tests.

STUDY DESIGN

This is a cross-sectional design.

METHODS

The subjects (1145) underwent routine physical examinations. The variables in the NAFLD index (NFI) were obtained by a stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis on 1000 bootstrap samples. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (AUROC) was used to evaluate the accuracy of the NFI.

RESULTS

Multivariate analysis showed that body mass index, fasting blood glucose, ratio of alanine aminotransferase to aspartate aminotransferase, and triglyceride were included in the final equation. The AUROC of the NFI was 0.919 (95% confidence interval = 0.901-0.937). An NFI of <31.0 excluded the possibility of NAFLD with a sensitivity of 96.9%, and at a value of >36.0, the NFI could detect NAFLD with a specificity of 98.9%.

CONCLUSIONS

NFI was a cost-effective NAFLD-screening model, which had a high accuracy for predicting NAFLD at early stages in the Chinese population.

Prediction of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease by Anthropometric Indices and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis in Children

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is highly prevalent in children and is associated with obesity. Objectives: To test whether addition of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) parameters to BMI and anthropometric indices improves the prediction performance of NAFLD than BMI z score (BAZ) alone. Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 933 children 6-12 years of age for anthropometric measure, BIA, and liver ultrasound. Prediction models of the BAZ, anthropometric, and BIA sets were built in children with obesity using machine learning algorithms. Results: Prevalences of NAFLD were 44.4% (59/133) and 20% (12/60) in boys and girls with obesity, respectively. In both sexes, BAZ set performed worst; adding anthropometric indices into the model improved the model performance, whereas BIA parameters were the best approach for predicting NAFLD. The best result in boys achieved had an accuracy of 75.9% and area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.854. In girls, the best result achieved had an F-measure score of 0.615, Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.512, and area under precision-recalled curve of 0.697. Conclusion: BIA is a simple and highly precise tool that yields better NAFLD prediction model than anthropometric indices, and much better performance than BAZ. This study suggests BIA as a potential predictor for pediatric NAFLD.

Fatty Liver in Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer and Its Impact on Patient's Survival

Purpose

Long-term estrogen inhibition may cause fatty liver disease (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; NAFLD) among other adverse conditions such as osteoporosis, climacteric symptoms, thromboembolism, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome. The prevalence of NAFLD among breast cancer patients ranges from 2.3%–45.2%. This study aimed to determine the risk factors for newly developed NAFLD among breast cancer patients after hormonal treatment and whether it influences survival outcomes.

Methods

This retrospective study investigated hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative (HR+/HER2−), nonmetastatic breast cancer patients diagnosed between January 2010 and December 2018. All patients received adjuvant hormonal treatment for at least 6 months. Clinical data on metabolic profile indicators such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), diabetes, and presence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) were collected. In total, 160 eligible patients with complete covariate data and survival follow-up were included.

Results

NAFLD was diagnosed in 35% of patients. There were significant associations of being overweight (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m²), waist circumference > 80 cm, triglycerides ≥ 150 mg/dL, HDL-C ≤ 50 mg/dL, LDL-C < 150 mg/dL, and presence of MetS with the development of NAFLD. However, unlike other factors, MetS and HDL-C were not independently associated with NAFLD. Patients with breast cancer who developed NAFLD had longer disease-free survival (DFS). The median DFS was not reached in the NAFLD group, whereas it was 59.3 (45.6–73.0) months in the non-NAFLD group. No worsening of overall survival was observed in patients with breast cancer and NAFLD.

Conclusion

The development of NAFLD during treatment in patients with HR+/HER2− breast cancer was associated with several independent risk factors: being overweight, waist circumference, triglycerides, and LDL-C. Interestingly, breast cancer patients with NAFLD during treatment had longer DFS than those without NAFLD.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and early prediction of gestational diabetes using machine learning methods

Background/Aims

To develop an early prediction model for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) using machine learning and to evaluate whether the inclusion of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)-associated variables increases the performance of model.

Methods

This prospective cohort study evaluated pregnant women for NAFLD using ultrasound at 10–14 weeks and screened them for GDM at 24–28 weeks of gestation. The clinical variables before 14 weeks were used to develop prediction models for GDM (setting 1, conventional risk factors; setting 2, addition of new risk factors in recent guidelines; setting 3, addition of routine clinical variables; setting 4, addition of NALFD-associated variables, including the presence of NAFLD and laboratory results; and setting 5, top 11 variables identified from a stepwise variable selection method). The predictive models were constructed using machine learning methods, including logistic regression, random forest, support vector machine, and deep neural networks.

Results

Among 1,443 women, 86 (6.0%) were diagnosed with GDM. The highest performing prediction model among settings 1–4 was setting 4, which included both clinical and NAFLD-associated variables (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] 0.563–0.697 in settings 1–3 vs. 0.740–0.781 in setting 4). Setting 5, with top 11 variables (which included NAFLD and hepatic steatosis index), showed similar predictive power to setting 4 (AUC 0.719–0.819 in setting 5, P=not significant between settings 4 and 5).

Conclusions

We developed an early prediction model for GDM using machine learning. The inclusion of NAFLD-associated variables significantly improved the performance of GDM prediction. (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02276144)

Deep learning for abdominal ultrasound: A computer-aided diagnostic system for the severity of fatty liver

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is increasing over time worldwide, with similar trends to those of diabetes and obesity. A liver biopsy, the gold standard of diagnosis, is not favored due to its invasiveness. Meanwhile, noninvasive evaluation methods of fatty liver are still either very expensive or demonstrate poor diagnostic performances, thus, limiting their applications. We developed neural network-based models to assess fatty liver and classify the severity using B-mode ultrasound (US) images.

METHODS

We followed standards for reporting of diagnostic accuracy guidelines to report this study. In this retrospective study, we utilized B-mode US images from a consecutive series of patients to develop four-class, two-class, and three-class diagnostic prediction models. The images were eligible if confirmed by at least two gastroenterologists. We compared pretrained convolutional neural network models, consisting of visual geometry group (VGG)19, ResNet-50 v2, MobileNet v2, Xception, and Inception v2. For validation, we utilized 20% of the dataset resulting in >100 images for each severity category.

RESULTS

There were 21,855 images from 2,070 patients classified as normal (N = 11,307), mild (N = 4,467), moderate (N = 3,155), or severe steatosis (N = 2,926). We used ResNet-50 v2 for the final model as the best ones. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were 0.974 (mild steatosis vs others), 0.971 (moderate steatosis vs others), 0.981 (severe steatosis vs others), 0.985 (any severity vs normal), and 0.996 (moderate-to-severe steatosis/clinically abnormal vs normal-to-mild steatosis/clinically normal).

CONCLUSION

Our deep learning models achieved comparable predictive performances to the most accurate, yet expensive, noninvasive diagnostic methods for fatty liver. Because of the discriminative ability, including for mild steatosis, significant impacts on clinical applications for fatty liver are expected. However, we need to overcome machine-dependent variation, motion artifacts, lacking of second confirmation from any other tools, and hospital-dependent regional bias.

Circulating microRNA‑135a‑3p in serum extracellular vesicles as a potential biological marker of non‑alcoholic fatty liver disease

Non‑alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a widespread threat to human health. However, the present screening methods for NAFLD are time‑consuming or invasive. The present study aimed to assess the potential of microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) in serum extracellular vesicles (EVs) as a biomarker of NAFLD. C57BL/6J mice were fed either a 12‑week high‑fat diet (HFD) or standard chow to establish NAFLD and control groups, respectively. Serum samples were obtained from the mouse model of NAFLD, as well as 50 patients with NAFLD and 50 healthy individuals, and EVs were extracted and verified. Using reverse transcription‑quantitative PCR, the mRNA expression level of selected miRNAs in the serum and EVs was analyzed. In order to determine the diagnostic value, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used. The mice treated with HFD showed notable hepatic steatosis and higher concentrations of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT). There was also a significant decrease in the expression levels of miR‑135a‑3p, miR‑129b‑5p and miR‑504‑3p, and an increase in miR‑122‑5p expression levels in circulating EVs in mice treated with HFD and patients with NAFLD. There were also similar miR‑135a‑3p and miR‑122‑5p expression patterns in the serum. ROC analysis demonstrated that miR‑135a‑3p in circulating EVs was highly accurate in diagnosing NAFLD, with the area under the curve value being 0.849 (95% CI, 0.777‑0.921; P<0.0001). Bioinformatics analysis indicated that dysregulated miR‑135a‑3p was associated with 'platelet‑derived growth factor receptor signaling pathway' and 'AMP‑activated protein kinase signaling pathway'. In summary, circulating miR‑135a‑3p in EVs may serve as a potential non‑invasive biomarker to diagnose NAFLD. This miRNA was a more sensitive and specific biological marker for NAFLD compared with ALT.

Lean non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and associated metabolic disturbance: A Saudi Arabian cross-sectional study

Non-alcoholic liver disease (NAFLD) is a metabolic liver disease associated with visceral adiposity and insulin resistance. Recently, NAFLD has been described in lean individuals who additionally have impaired metabolic parameters similar to their non-lean counterparts. We aimed to explore this further in Saudi Arabia. From 2016 to 2019, we prospectively studied a group of newly diagnosed NAFLD patients at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia. Patients were classified into three groups: lean (body mass index [BMI] <25), overweight (BMI ≥25 and <30), and obese (BMI ≥30). We made comparisons between these groups on basic clinical, demographic, and laboratory parameters. In total, 1753 patients were recruited and 1262 patients met the inclusion criteria. Altogether, 159 (12.6%), 365 (29%), and 737 (58.4%) patients were in the lean, overweight, and obese categories, respectively. Lean NAFLD patients were, on average, younger than those in the overweight group (mean 49.95 ± 15.3) and had a significantly higher high-density lipoprotein value (HDL) (mean 52.56 ± 16.27). Sex, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension were significantly associated with BMI. Lean NAFLD patients displayed the features of metabolic syndrome including elevated glycosylated hemoglobin and abnormal lipid profile but had higher serum HDL. This is in contrast to the widely held belief that lean individuals have no dysmetabolic changes compared to overweight individuals. Recognition of this problem is essential so that lean NAFLD patients can be screened for metabolic changes and managed appropriately to prevent complications.

Conventional ultrasound for diagnosis of hepatic steatosis is better than believed

BACKGROUND

Hepatic steatosis is a condition frequently encountered in clinical practice, with potential progression towards fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Detection and staging of hepatic steatosis are of most importance in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a disease with a high prevalence of more than 1 billion individuals affected. Ultrasound (US) is one of the most used noninvasive imaging techniques used in the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis. Detection of hepatic steatosis with US relies on several conventional US parameters, which will be described. US is the first-choice imaging in adults at risk for hepatic steatosis. The use of some scoring systems may add additional accuracy especially in assessing the severity of hepatic steatosis.

SUMMARY

In the presented paper, we discuss screening and risk stratification, ultrasound features for diagnosing hepatic steatosis, B-mode criteria, focal fatty patterns and Doppler features of the hepatic vessels, and the value of the different US signs for the diagnosis of liver steatosis including classifying the severity of steatosis using different US scores. Limitations of conventional B-mode and Doppler features in the evaluation of hepatic steatosis are also discussed, including those in grading and assessing the complications of steatosis, namely fibrosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

KEY MESSAGES

Ultrasound is the first-line imaging examination for the screening and follow-up of patients with liver steatosis. The use of some scoring systems may add additional accuracy in assessing the severity of steatosis. Conventional B-mode and Doppler ultrasound have limitations in grading and assessing the complications of steatosis.

Liver disease classification from ultrasound using multi-scale CNN

PURPOSE

Ultrasound (US) is the preferred modality for fatty liver disease diagnosis due to its noninvasive, real-time, and cost-effective imaging capabilities. However, traditional B-mode US is qualitative, and therefore, the assessment is very subjective. Computer-aided diagnostic tools can improve the specificity and sensitivity of US and help clinicians to perform uniform diagnoses.

METHODS

In this work, we propose a novel deep learning model for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease classification from US data. We design a multi-feature guided multi-scale residual convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture to capture features of different receptive fields. B-mode US images are combined with their corresponding local phase filtered images and radial symmetry transformed images as multi-feature inputs for the network. Various fusion strategies are studied to improve prediction accuracy. We evaluate the designed network architectures on B-mode in vivo liver US images collected from 55 subjects. We also provide quantitative results by comparing our proposed multi-feature CNN architecture against traditional CNN designs and machine learning methods.

RESULTS

Quantitative results show an average classification accuracy above 90% over tenfold cross-validation. Our proposed method achieves a 97.8% area under the ROC curve (AUC) for the patient-specific leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) evaluation. Comprehensive validation results further demonstrate that our proposed approaches achieve significant improvements compared to training mono-feature CNN architectures ([Formula: see text]).

CONCLUSIONS

Feature combination is valuable for the traditional classification methods, and the use of multi-scale CNN can improve liver classification accuracy. Based on the promising performance, the proposed method has the potential in practical applications to help radiologists diagnose nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Embedding assessment of liver fibrosis into routine diabetic review in primary care

Background & Aims

Individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are at high risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and advanced fibrosis/cirrhosis. Screening patients with T2DM and normal liver enzymes for NAFLD in primary care remains contentious. Our aim was to develop and assess a primary care pathway integrating two-tier (Fib-4 then transient elastography [TE]) liver fibrosis assessment, irrespective of aetiology, into routine annual review of all patients with T2DM.

Methods

All patients aged >35 years with T2DM attending annual review at 2 primary care practices in North East England between April 2018 and September 2019 (n = 467) had Fib-4 requested via the electronic patient record. Those with a Fib-4 score above the ‘high-sensitivity’ threshold (>1.3 for ≤65 years and >2.0 for >65 years) underwent TE and were reviewed in secondary care if the liver stiffness measurement (LSM) was >8 kPa. The number of patients identified with advanced disease, service uptake, and predictors of advanced disease were assessed.

Results

A total of 85/467 (18.5%) patients had raised Fib-4; 27/467(5.8%) were excluded as a result of frailty or known cirrhosis. A total of 58/467 (12.2%) were referred for TE. Twenty-five of 58 (43.1%) had an LSM of >8 kPa and 13/58 (22.4%) had an LSM >15 kPa; 4/58 (6.7%) did not attend and 5/58 (9.3%) had an invalid reading. Twenty of 440 (4.5%) patients were found to have advanced liver disease following specialist review, compared to 3 patients previously identified through standard care (odds ratio [OR] 6.71 [2.0–22.7] p = 0.0022). Alcohol (OR 1.05 [1.02–1.08] p = 0.001) and BMI (OR 1.09 [1.01–1.17] p = 0.021) were predictors of advanced disease, particularly drinking >14/21 units/week (p <0.0001)

Conclusions

Incorporating 2-tier assessment of liver fibrosis into routine annual diabetes review in primary care significantly improves identification of advanced liver disease in patients with T2DM.

Lay summary

People with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and developing more significant complications. This study looks at introducing screening for advanced liver disease into the annual diabetes reviews performed routinely in primary care; we found that significantly more people were identified as having significant liver disease through this pathway than with current standard care.

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People with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of advanced liver fibrosis, exacerbated by excess alcohol consumption.

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Incorporating a 2-step fibrosis assessment into primary care diabetes review increased advanced fibrosis detection 7-fold.

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Fib-4 scores automatically calculated at diabetic review in primary care and results displayed with advisory comments.

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Almost half the patients identified with advanced liver disease had alanine transferase below the laboratory cut-off.

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This pathway could improve detection of advanced liver disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes in primary care.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in the Field of Diabetology

Ultrasound is increasingly used in daily clinical practice to improve the efficiency of the clinical examination. In this article, we reviewed its various possible uses in the field of diabetology. The ultrasonic evaluation of the carotid arteries (plaques and intima media thickness) allows improving the assessment of the cardiovascular risk. Steatosis can be detected relatively easily on liver ultrasound. Ultrasound also allows a more sensitive detection of lipohypertrophy resulting in glycemic fluctuations and thus increasing the risk of hypoglycemia than the clinical examination. Finally, muscle ultrasound appears to be a promising tool to assess the nutritional status and its consequences (e.g., falls).

Ultrasound Findings and Laboratory Predictors of Early Mortality in Patients With Severe Yellow Fever

OBJECTIVE. Yellow fever is a hemorrhagic disease caused by an arbovirus endemic in South America; outbreaks have occurred in recent years. The purpose of this study was to describe abdominal ultrasound findings in patients with severe yellow fever and correlate them with clinical and laboratory data. MATERIALS AND METHODS. A retrospective cohort study was performed between January and April 2018. The subjects were patients admitted to an ICU with polymerase chain reaction-confirmed yellow fever. Bedside sonography was performed within 48 hours of admission. Images were independently analyzed by two board-certified radiologists. Laboratory test samples were collected within 12 hours of image acquisition. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify 30-day mortality predictors; p < .05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS. Forty-six patients (40 [87%] men, six [13%] women; mean age, 47.5 ± 15.2 years) were evaluated with bedside sonography. Laboratory tests showed high serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase (5319 U/L), total bilirubin (6.2 mg/dL), and creati-nine (4.3 mg/dL). Twenty-six (56.5%) patients died within 30 days of admission (median time to death, 5 days [interquartile range, 2-9 days]). The most frequent ultrasound findings were gallbladder wall thickening (80.4%), increased renal cortex echogenicity (71.7%), increased liver parenchyma echogenicity (65.2%), perirenal fluid (52.2%), and ascites (30.4%). Increased renal echogenicity was associated with 30-day mortality (84.6% versus 55.0%; p = .046) and was an independent predictor of this outcome after multivariate analysis (odds ratio, 10.89; p = .048). CONCLUSION. Reproducible abdominal ultrasound findings in patients with severe yellow fever may be associated with severity of disease and prognosis among patients treated in the ICU.

HbA1C as a Biomarker of Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Comparison with Anthropometric Parameters

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Multiple non-invasive methods including radiological, anthropometric and biochemical markers have been reported with variable performance. The present study assessed glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA_1C) as a biomarker to predict non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its severity, compared with body mass index (BMI), waist to hip ratio (WHR) and waist circumference (WC).

METHODS

This case control study included 450 individuals, including 150 cases and 300 age- and gender-matched controls recruited from the Dow Radiology Institute on the basis of radiological findings of fatty infiltration on abdominal ultrasound through convenient sampling. BMI, WHR and WC were measured according to standard protocols. HbA_1C was determined by turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay.

RESULTS

Among the cases and controls, 66% and 32% had HbA_1C levels higher than 5.7% respectively. HbA_1C and BMI were significantly associated with NAFLD [crude odds ratio (cOR)=4.12, 2.88, 2.25 (overweight) and 4.32 (obese)]. WC was found to be significantly associated with NAFLD for both genders (cOR in males=5.50 and females=5.79, p<0.01). After adjustment for other parameters, HbA_1C and WC were found to be significantly associated with NAFLD (aOR=3.40, p<0.001) along with WC in males (aOR=2.91, p<0.05) and in females (aOR=4.28, p<0.05). A significant rise in severity of hepatic steatosis was noted with increases in HbA_1C, BMI and WC. HbA_1C possessed a positive predictive value of 76% for the study population [0.76, confidence interval (CI): 0.715-0.809], 70.6% for males (0.706, CI: 0.629-0.783) and 80% for females (0.80, CI: 0.741-0.858).

CONCLUSIONS

Higher than normal HbA_1C and WC measurements possess a more than 70% potential to predict NAFLD. It is the single risk factor that is strongly associated with NAFLD after adjustment for indices of body measurements. HbA_1C may be presented as a potential biomarker for NAFLD in examination with other anthropometric measures in the adult population.

Comparison of knowledge and awareness between consultant physicians and resident doctors about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

AIM OF THE STUDY

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a multisystem disease and is commonly associated with diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia, hypertension and obesity. These illnesses are usually treated by physicians, and hence they need to stay updated on NAFLD. The aim of the study was to assess and compare the knowledge and awareness about NAFLD among consultant physicians and resident doctors.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A questionnaire concerning epidemiology, risk factors, complications, diagnostic methods, management options, progression and screening of NAFLD was given to the consultant physicians and resident doctors and their responses were sought. The comparison of responses was carried out between residents and consultants using Pearson's χ2 test.

RESULTS

A total of 240 doctors participated in the study with 60 resident doctors and 180 consultant physicians. 45% of the total participants did not consider NAFLD as a major health hazard. Consultants had better knowledge than residents about the prevalence of NAFLD, and the risks due to various factors. Also they had better knowledge about non-invasive diagnostic modalities. Resident doctors advocated use of antioxidants more than consultants. There was no statistically significant difference of perception between residents and physicians about association of NAFLD with diabetes and obesity, diet advice, dietary modification and exercise, usage of medications, avoidance of hepatotoxic drugs and alcohol.

CONCLUSIONS

This study revealed that physicians participating in our survey appreciate the prevalence of NAFLD but are unaware of the seriousness and the optimal management. This has implications for targeting 'at-risk' populations and appropriate referral of patients to gastroenterology/hepatology clinics.

Novel Method for Ultrasound-Derived Fat Fraction Using an Integrated Phantom

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the clinical feasibility of an integrated reference phantom method for quantitative ultrasound by creating an ultrasound-derived fat fraction (UDFF) tool. This tool was evaluated with respect to its diagnostic performance as a biomarker for assessing histologic hepatic steatosis and its agreement with the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) proton density fat fraction (PDFF).

METHODS

Adults (n = 101) with known or suspected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease consented to participate in this prospective cross-sectional study. All patients underwent MRI-PDFF and ultrasound scans, whereas 90 underwent liver biopsy. A linear least-squares analysis used the attenuation coefficient and backscatter coefficient to create the UDFF model for predicting MRI-PDFF.

RESULTS

The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values were 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.85-0.98) for histologic steatosis grade 0 (n = 6) versus 1 or higher (n = 84), 0.88 (95% CI, 0.8-0.94) for grade 1 or lower (n = 45) versus 2 or higher (n = 45), and 0.83 (95% CI, 0.73-0.9) for grade 2 or lower (n = 78) versus 3 (n = 12). The Pearson correlation coefficient between UDFF and PDFF was ρ = 0.87 with 95% limits of agreement of ±8.5%. Additionally, the diagnosis of steatosis, defined as MRI-PDFF higher than 5% and 10%, had area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values of 0.97 (95% CI, 0.93-0.99) and 0.95 (95% CI, 0.9-0.98), respectively. The body mass index was not correlated with either UDFF or PDFF.

CONCLUSIONS

An on-system, integrated UDFF tool provides a simple, noninvasive, accessible, low-cost, and commercially viable clinical tool for quantifying the hepatic fat fraction with a high degree of agreement with histologic biopsy or the MRI-PDFF biomarker.