Prevalence of liver fibrosis in an unselected general population with high prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus. Time for screening?

INTRODUCTION

Cirrhosis and liver cancer are currently common causes of death worldwide. The global epidemic of obesity has increased the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cirrhosis in recent years. Advanced fibrosis increases the morbimortality rate in NAFLD. The Mexican population has one of the highest prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) worldwide.

AIM

To determine the prevalence of advanced liver fibrosis in Mexican general population.

METHODS

Adult individuals, without a history of liver disease nor heavy alcohol consumption were randomly sampled from 20,919 participants of a health and nutrition survey applied to the general population. Clinical and laboratory evaluations were performed to calculate the NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) (an extensively validated non-invasive method). Two cut-off points were used. Advanced fibrosis was defined as a result >0.676.

RESULTS

In total 695 individuals were included. The mean age was 47.8±16.4. The majority were between 20 and 50 years (59%), 70.2% were female, 35.5% showed obesity and 15.8% DM. The 93% had normal serum ALT. Based on the NFS results, 56 individuals (8.1%) had a high probability of fibrosis. Most patients from this subgroup showed normal serum ALT (92.9%), 89.3% were >45yr. old, 52% were obese and 27% suffered from DM.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on these results, 8.1% of Mexican general population without a history of liver disease is at high risk of having advanced liver fibrosis and complications and death derived from cardiovascular disease and cirrhosis. Most of them showed normal ALT serum levels.