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Updated: Jun 23, 2025

Optimized Analysis of In Vivo and In Vitro Hepatic Steatosis
Published on: March 11, 2017
DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY OF THE NON-INVASIVE MARKERS NFLS, NI-NASH-DS, AND FIB-4 FOR ASSESSMENT OF DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF
Gustavo Macedo Haddad1, Martinho Antonio Gestic2, Murillo Pimentel Utrini2
1Faculdade de Medicina da Pontíficia Universidade Católica de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brasil.
Background:
Non-invasive markers have been developed to assess the presence and severity of liver abnormalities related to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Objective:
To analyze the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive NAFLD markers (NAFLD liver fat score [NLFS], non-invasive non-alcoholic steatohepatitis detection score [NI-NASH-DS] and fibrosis score based on four variables [FIB-4]) in individuals with obesity undergoing bariatric surgery.
Methods:
A descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out enrolling 91 individuals who underwent bariatric surgery at a tertiary-level public university hospital. Non-invasive NAFLD markers were calculated using laboratory tests, clinical and anthropometric variables and diagnostic accuracy tests were calculated comparing them in relation to the gold-standard test for this analysis (histopathological evaluation).
Results:
A total of 85.7% of the participants were female and mean age was 39.1±9.8 years. The average body mass index was 38.4±3.6 kg/m2. At histopathological examination, 84 (92.3%) patients presented with steatosis, 82 (90.1%) with some type of fibrosis; 21 (23.1%) patients were diagnosed with NASH according to the NAFLD activity score criteria. The overall accuracy of NLFS score was 58.2% for general hepatic steatosis and 61.5% for moderate to severe steatosis. The overall accuracy of FIB-4 was 95.4% for advanced fibrosis. NI-NASH-DS had a 74.7% overall accuracy for NASH.
Conclusion:
In a population of individuals with obesity, the FIB-4 score had high overall accuracy in assessing the presence of advanced liver fibrosis, whereas the NFLS and NI-NASH-DS had moderate accuracies for the assessment of steatosis and NASH, respectively.
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