Fibrotic MASH resolution^VCTE index to diagnose fibrotic MASH resolution and predict LREs: A global multicenter study

Non-invasive assessment of improvement in fibrotic metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) is an important clinical problem. We aimed to develop and validate the fibrotic MASH resolution^VCTE index, a non-invasive tool for identifying fibrotic MASH resolution and predicting liver-related events (LREs).

We collected data from 2,017 individuals who had two liver biopsies, separated in time, across 40 centers in the first dataset. This dataset included two independent cohorts, which were used to develop and externally validate the tool (including the baseline and change in acFibroMASH index plus change in serum alanine aminotransferase levels). The second independent dataset, comprising 17,949 patients who underwent vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) at 16 centers, was used to examine associations between the developed index and the risk of incident LREs.

After application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 252 and 8,752 patients were included in the first and second datasets, respectively. The fibrotic MASH resolution^VCTE index accurately identified fibrotic MASH resolution with an area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) of 0.82 (95% CI 0.74-0.90) in the derivation cohort and 0.80 (95% CI 0.72-0.88) in the validation cohort. Patients with a fibrotic MASH resolution^VCTE index >0.61 had a substantially lower risk of incident LREs than those with an index <0.24 (adjusted-hazard ratio 0.043). The index achieved AUROCs of 0.86 and 0.87, respectively, for predicting the 5- and 10-year probability of not developing LREs.

This global multicenter study suggests that the fibrotic MASH resolution^VCTE index may offer a non-invasive approach to estimate fibrotic MASH resolution and stratify long-term risk of LREs.

National Natural Science Foundation.