Clinical Criteria Correlated with the Incidence of Patients with Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Goals. In this study, predictive panels were constructed and validated to recognize an individual with and without nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) based on clinical and biochemical criteria. Methods. Two hundred and thirty six non-alcoholic adults with no chronic viral hepatitis history were recruited from a medical center in Taiwan in 2013. All subjects were examined for body mass index (BMI), abdominal ultrasonography, blood liver function tests (including alanine aminotransferase [ALT], aspartate aminotransferase [AST], gamma glutamyl transpeptidase [GGT]), blood lipids (total cholesterol [TC] and triglyceride [TG]) and blood glucose (BG) tests. Results. NAFLD was observed in 66.97% of subjects. BMI (p<0.001), ALT (p<0.001), AST (p=0.014), GGT (p=0.034), TC (p=0.026), TG (p<0.001) and BG (p<0.001) were significantly higher for subjects with NAFLD than subjects without NAFLD. The BMI results (p<0.001), TG (p<0.001), ALT (p<0.001), BG (p<0.001), AST (p=0.001), and GGT (p=0.001) correlated well with the extent of NAFLD. The increasing risks of NAFLD are hypertriglyceridemia (p<0.001), high ALT (p<0.001), high GGT (p=0.009), and hypercholesterolemia (p=0.017). Moreover, NAFLD was observed in 98.5% (p<0.001) of subjects with three clinical manifestations of body overweight, hypertriglyceridemia and high ALT. Additionally, NAFLD was observed in 96.5% (p<0.001) of subjects with other tri-criteria (body overweight, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypercholesterolemia), or 92.6% (p<0.001) of subjects with another tri-criteria (body overweight, hypertriglyceridemia, and high GGT). Conclusion. The tri-criteria of diagnoses can accurately predict the surveillance of NAFLD.