Noninvasive assessment of liver disease severity with liver fat score and CK-18 in NAFLD: Prognostic value of liver fat equation goes beyond hepatic fat estimation
Authors: Giovanni Musso, Roberto Gambino, Marilena Durazzo, Maurizio Cassader
Journal: Hepatology (2009)

We read with interest the article by Kotronen et al.,1 reporting on liver fat score and liver fat equation—new noninvasive, easy-to-calculate indexes that estimate the presence and severity of hepatic fat accumulation. We assessed the ability of these two indexes and of plasma cytokeratin-18 fragments (CK-18) to predict the presence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH),1, 2 respectively, and their relations to validated predictors of incident cardiovascular disease and diabetes.3, 4 To this purpose, 125 subjects (40 nondiabetic patients with biopsy-proven NAFLD and 85 healthy controls) underwent an oral fat tolerance test,5 with measurement of postprandial plasma lipid responses, and a standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), whose results were elaborated by Minimal Model analysis to assess whole-body, hepatic, and muscle insulin sensitivity and indexes of pancreatic β-cell function (namely, CP-genic index [CGI] and Adaptation Index [AI]), as previously described.5-7 Finally, circulating markers of inflammation (C-reactive protein), endothelial dysfunction (E-selectin and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 [ICAM-1]) and oxidative stress (nitrotyrosine and oxidized low-density lipoproteins) were measured. Results are shown in Table 1. NASH group showed higher postprandial lipemia and oxidative stress than either steatosis or controls. Patients with NASH had also more severe whole-body insulin resistance, hepatic insulin resistance, and pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and higher plasma C-reactive protein, E-selectin, ICAM-1, and nitrotyrosine levels than steatosis and control groups. Liver fat equation correlated with the degree of histological steatosis in both NASH and steatosis groups (in both groups: rs > 0.66, P < 0.003). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of liver fat score for predicting NAFLD was 0.86 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.82–0.91). A cutoff of −0.640 individuated NAFLD with a sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratio of 0.93, 0.80, 4.63, and 0.09, respectively. The AUROC of CK-18 for NASH was 0.83 (95% CI: 0.80–0.90). A cutoff of 246 IU/L for CK-18 individuated NASH with a sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratio of 0.78, 0.88, 6.65, and 0.25, respectively. On multiple regression analysis, liver fat equation independently correlated with hepatic insulin resistance (β = 0.52; 95% CI: 0.48–0.56, P = 0.005) and with indexes of pancreatic β-cell function (for CGI: β = −0.43; 95% CI: 0.48–0.56, P = 0.01; for AI: β = −0.46; 95% CI: 0.42–0.51, P = 0.009) in the whole sample. Liver fat equation also independently predicted plasma C-reactive protein (β = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.37–0.44, P = 0.02), nitrotyrosine (β = 0.41; 95% CI: 0.38–0.46, P = 0.02), E-selectin (β = 0.49; 95% CI: 0.45–0.54, P = 0.006), and postprandial triglyceride (β = 0.42; 95% CI: 0.39–0.46, P = 0.02) and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (β = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.38–0.45, P = 0.03) responses to the fat load. Histological steatosis, inflammatory grade, and fibrosis stage were not independently related to the abovementioned parameters. In conclusion, liver fat equation and CK-18 accurately individuated the presence and severity of liver fat infiltration and the presence of NASH in our cohort of nondiabetic subjects. Most importantly, liver fat equation was tightly related to validated predictors of increased cardiometabolic risk in both healthy and NAFLD subjects. The clinical significance of liver fat equation may thus go beyond hepatic fat content estimation and this easy-to-calculate index may aid in predicting individual cardio-metabolic risk of patients with NAFLD. Our cross-sectional findings warrant prospective confirmation in independent large cohorts. Giovanni Musso M.D.*, Roberto Gambino Ph.D. , Marilena Durazzo Ph.D. , Maurizio Cassader Ph.D. , * Gradenigo Hospital, Turin, Italy, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Turin, Italy.