Histopathological Association of Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease With Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis Grade
Authors:   Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Gholami Behnaz , Khoshbaten Manouchehr ,   Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Eftekhari Hamidreza ,   Department of Pathology, Legal Medicine Center of East Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Iran., Razi Soofiyani Saiedeh ,   Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Ghojazadeh Morteza ,   Evidence-Based Medicine Research Center, Iranian EBM Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Zaare Nahandi Maryam ,   Kidney Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Vahedi Amir ,   Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Ostadi Ali ,   Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Banagozar Mohammadi Ahad ,   Medical Philosophy and History Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., Kamali Sabeti Artin ,   Department of Forensic Medicine, Legal Medicine Research Center, Legal Medicine Center of East Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Iran., Banagozar Mohammadi Ali ,   Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran., SamadiRad Bahram ,   Department of Forensic Medicine, Legal Medicine Research Center, Legal Medicine Center of East Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Iran., Najafi Booket Alireza ,   Department of Pathology, Legal Medicine Center of East Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Iran.
Published: February 2024

Background: The association between the severity of coronary atherosclerosis and histopathologic findings in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is not entirely understood. Considering the gold standard method, this study evaluates the histopathologic association between the severity of NAFLD and the grades of coronary atherosclerosis. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, data from 205 cadavers who were referred to an Iranian (Tabriz) forensic medicine organization between 2015 and 2017 and underwent simultaneous liver and coronary artery biopsies were examined. Finally, 168 cases were entered based on the inclusion criteria. First, pathological slides of these cadavers were extracted from the forensic medicine archive and re-examined. Then, the selected cases’ blocks were extracted from the tissue block bank, and again, after preparing a new slide, they were stained with trichrome for accurate estimation of liver fibrosis. Results: The assessment of NAFLD histological status in the studied cases revealed that 75.6% of the cases were classified as severity I, 18.4% as severity II, and 6% as severity III. Most cases with coronary atherosclerosis were classified as American Heart Association staging (AHA), type V (19.6%), and normal (19.6%). There was no statistically significant relationship between the severity of simple steatosis, steatohepatitis, and NAFLD, with coronary atherosclerosis. In subjects with higher severity of coronary atherosclerosis, the liver fibrosis rate is also higher, but no statistically significant difference was observed. Conclusion: The present study revealed no significant histopathological association between NAFLD and coronary artery atherosclerosis grade.