Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease- correlation between shear wave elastography and nafld fibrosis score: a descriptive single centre study

Abstract

Background: Due to the global burden of obesity and type 2 diabetes, prevalence of NAFLD is now increasing, becoming one of the most common cause of chronic liver disease and liver transplantation both for end-stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Although traditionally liver biopsy is gold standard for diagnosis of NAFLD, majority of patients can be non-invasively diagnosed with various tools like scoring systems (NAFLD fibrosis score, BARD score), ultrasound and MR elastographic techniques. The primary objective of this study was to assess the liver stiffness measurement by shear wave elastography and assess correlation between LSM by SWE and NAFLD fibrosis score in NAFLD patients.Methods: This is a descriptive study comprising 75 patients with clinical suspicion of NAFLD, referred from Gastroenterology department from January 2020 to June 2021. All patients had undergone SWE, NAFLD fibrosis score calculated and results analyzed.Results: Among the 75 patients studied, applying low cut off value of NAFLD fibrosis score (below -1.455), the presence of advanced fibrosis was excluded and by applying the high cut off point (>0.676) majority of subjects had advanced fibrosis. The NAFLD fibrosis score was correlated with E median values of liver stiffness measurement using Pearson correlation test and showed a moderate positive correlation (p=0.0001, =0.685) between both the variables.Conclusions: Our study showed positive moderate correlation between NAFLD fibrosis score and LSM by 2D SWE. Multistep strategies using liver 2D SWE and NAFLD fibrosis score in combination can be used in the future to accurately diagnose or exclude the presence of advanced fibrosis in NAFLD patients.