Diagnosis of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) at Risk for Advanced Fibrosis in a...

Recent guidelines provide recommendations for diagnosing metabolic dysfunction-associate steatotic liver disease (MASLD) when hepatic steatosis is seen radiographically, but questions remain as to when to pursue imaging for the evidence of hepatic steatosis.

We aimed to test the performance of traditional MASLD case-finding cues for detecting MASLD at-risk for advanced fibrosis.

We performed a cross-sectional study of electronic health record data from a large primary care clinic between 2012 and 2021.

Patients with abdominal imaging and inputs for Fibrosis-4 Index (FIB-4) calculation.

We examined the performance characteristics of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m², or an alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ≥ 40 IU/L for detecting the primary outcome of MASLD at-risk for advanced fibrosis. We also tested the optimal thresholds of BMI and ALT for detecting the primary outcome.

The sample included 9000 patients of whom 1683 (19%) patients had MASLD and 696 (8%) had MASLD and an indeterminate-risk or greater for advanced fibrosis. T2DM, BMI ≥ 30 kg/m², and ALT ≥ 40 IU/L identified 45%, 48%, and 49% of patients with MASLD at-risk for advanced fibrosis. An ALT ≥ 31 IU/L had the highest AUC for detecting MASLD at-risk for advanced fibrosis, and the union of T2DM, BMI ≥ 30 kg/m², or ALT ≥ 31 IU/L had a sensitivity of 89%.

While historical cues for MASLD case finding had low sensitivities individually, the union of these three, simple, broadly available signals had a high sensitivity for MASLD at-risk for advanced fibrosis.