The fatty liver index is associated with increased mortality in subjects referred to coronary angiography

Fatty liver index (FLI), a surrogate parameter for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, is an emerging risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and mortality. We aimed to evaluate whether FLI is associated with all-cause, cardiovascular, and non-cardiovascular mortality as well as fatal cancer in a cohort of subjects routinely referred to coronary angiography.

FLI was calculated using BMI (body mass index), waist circumference (WC), triglycerides (TG) and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) in 3270 subjects who were referred to coronary angiography (1997-2000). The main outcome measures were Cox proportional hazard ratios (HRs) for mortality from all causes, cardiovascular causes, non-cardiovascular causes, and fatal cancer. After a median follow-up time of 7.7 years, 740 subjects (22.6%) had died. There were 437 deaths due to cardiovascular disease and 303 deaths due to non-cardiovascular disease. Age-, sex-, and BMI-adjusted HRs (with 95% confidence intervals) for all-cause, cardiovascular, and non-cardiovascular mortality in the highest compared to the lowest FLI quartile were 2.56 (1.90-3.43; p < 0.001), 2.17 (1.47-3.22; p < 0.001), and 3.49 (2.16-5.66; p < 0.001), respectively. In age-, sex-, and BMI-adjusted analyzes, we found no significant association of FLI with fatal cancer. Multivariate adjusted HRs for all-cause, cardiovascular, non-cardiovascular mortality, and fatal cancer in the highest compared to the lowest FLI quartile were 2.17 (1.58-2.99; p < 0.001), 1.64 (1.07-2.51; p = 0.023), 3.72 (2.22-6.24; p < 0.001), and 2.33 (1.01-5.41; p = 0.048) respectively.

In subjects referred to coronary angiography, high FLI levels are independently associated with increased all-cause, cardiovascular, and non-cardiovascular mortality as well as fatal cancer.