Ultrasound and biomarker based assessment of hepatic steatosis in patients with severe obesity

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is among the most common liver abnormalities. Various methods based on ultrasound imaging and clinical biomarkers have been proposedfor the non-invasive diagnosis of the fatty liver disease in the general population. However, the usefulness of these methods for the patients with severe obesity has not been adequately investigated yet. In this work, we compare the fatty liver disease classification performance of the ultrasound hepatorenal index technique, the hepatic steatosis index and the NAFLD logit score technique in patients with severe obesity. Results demonstrate that the investigated methods require adjustments in order to work well in patients with severe obesity. Our study also indicates that the ultrasound hepatorenal index method outperforms biomarker-based techniques.

Diagnosis and assessment of disease severity in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

“…Moreover, some new techniques, such as ultrasound hepatorenal index 26 and ultrasound‐derived fat fraction, 27 have also emerged in the clinic, showing good diagnostic performance, but their reproducibility and diagnostic value need further validation.…”