Performance of Simple Fibrosis Score in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease with and without Type 2 Diabetes

Abstract

This cross-sectional study enrolled 267 patients with metabolic risk factors and established non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the prospective cohort. The performance of fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) score (≥1.3) to diagnose advanced fibrosis using transient elastography (liver stiffness measurement [LSM] ≥8 kPa) was analyzed. Comparing patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D, n=87) and without (n=180), not FIB-4, but LSM was significantly higher in T2D (P=0.026). The prevalence of advanced fibrosis was 17.2% in T2D and 12.8% in non-T2D. FIB-4 exhibited higher proportion of false negatives in T2D patients (10.9%) than those without (5.2%). The diagnostic performance of FIB-4 was suboptimal in T2D (area under curve [AUC], 0.653; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.462 to 0.844) compared to that in non-T2D (AUC, 0.826; 95% CI, 0.724 to 0.927). In conclusion, patients with T2D might be beneficial to conduct transient elastography without screening to avoid missing advanced fibrosis.