Endocrine Abstracts

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), currently considered a major problem of public health, includes fatty liver alone, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis. Obesity increases the risk of NAFLD in the patients having BMI >30 kg/m², where the liver involvement is a common aspect.

Aim: To find non-invasive methods fro the selection of patients with risk of progression of liver disease.

Materials and methods: We selected a group of 54 patients (31 female, 23 male) and compared the non-invasive methods – anthropometric measurements, biochemical exploration, adipokines (leptine and adiponectin) and ultrasound exploration – with the histological specimen obtained through liver biopsy (Matteoni classification).

Results: The histological alterations correlated with the elevated serum levels in triglycerides and ALAT and the BMI (P=0.008). Aminotranspherases, GGT, triglycerides and leptine had elevated levels in all patients. Adiponectin had negative correlation to the histological classification, whereas leptine correlated positively with the abdominal circumference, BMI and ultrasound aspect of the liver.

Conclusions: In our study, the anthropometric measurements, biochemical markers and liver ultrasound did not prove they can replace the liver biopsy. However, we recorded some association between BMI, high levels of triglycerides and BAAT score, low level of adiponectin that represent non-invasive markers for the selection of patients who require liver biopsy.