Portal Venous Pulsatility Index as a predictor of fibrosis in patients with non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract

Introduction: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing public health issue. Non-invasive methods to assess the fibrosis stage are limited, and biopsy remains the gold standard. The objective of our study was to assess whether the portal venous pulsatility index (VPI) can be used as a predictor of high-risk NAFLD at a tertiary referral centre for liver transplantation. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed patients with biopsy-proved NAFLD who had undergone a liver ultrasound scan within 1 year of biopsy at our centre from 2011 to 2019. Results: We did not find a significant correlation between the VPI and the NAFLD risk category or correlation between the VPI and degree of steatosis (P > 0.05 for both). Conclusion: Since VPI can be easily obtained on routine liver ultrasound and since other studies do report a positive association with significant fibrosis, more studies are needed before it can be recommended or not in risk-stratifying NAFLD patients into highvs. low-risk NAFLD.

The Portal Venous Pulsatility Index and Main Portal Vein Diameter as Surrogate Markers for Liver Fibrosis in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Metabolic-Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease

“…However, a slight variation emerged in patients with NAFLD and significant fibrosis, as our results indicated a VPI of 0.27, which was slightly higher than the value reported by Baikpour et al Nevertheless, these variations were attributed to the relatively milder degree of liver fibrosis in the SF (+) group in our study, as the majority of patients had LSM of <12 kPa. In the same context, other studies have reported similar results to ours in relation to VPI of the SF (+) group, ranging from 0.20 to 0.26 [16,17,19,20]. These consistent measurements across studies underscore the reliability of VPI as an ultrasonographic parameter.…”

“…This finding was corroborated by a subsequent study conducted by Hamed et al, which also observed a lower VPI among patients with NAFLD and fibrosis stage F2 or greater [19]. Lu et al presented contrasting results, showing no significant differences in VPI across different fibrosis stages [20]. Therefore, the potential of VPI as a predictive marker for liver fibrosis remains controversial.…”