How Good Is Trans Abdominal Ultrasound for Evaluating NAFLD in the General Population? A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common cause of liver test abnormality and chronic liver disease in the world and can increase liver related mortality. Association of NAFLD with metabolic syndrome increase mortality due to cardiovascular disease too. NAFLD is categorized histologically into the nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Liver biopsy has been known as gold standard of evaluating NAFLD, but this procedure is invasive. It is time to replace available and easier way to diagnose, and predict the prognosis for better management of NAFLD. This study was comparing the result of transabdominal ultrasonography with Fibroscan as a new and accurate method for evaluating severity of fatty liver disease. This was a cross-sectional study that was conducted using 101 patients with NAFLD. All patients who had TUS by one experienced radiologist and fibro scan at the same time were included. Visual liver echogenicity was basis of grading in TUS. Fibro scans results are based on controlled attenuation parameters (CAP) which is not operator dependent. Other information, such as age, waist, and BMI, were also gathered. TUS has a low value for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in NAFLD patients and predicting prognosis. TUS has a good correlation with fibroscan in grade 0 and 1of fatty liver, but in grade 2 and 3 of fatty liver, we can not rely on TUS for accurate grading.