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. 2023 Nov;43(11):2425-2433.
doi: 10.1111/liv.15695. Epub 2023 Aug 17.

Exploring the landscape of steatotic liver disease in the general US population

Stefano Ciardullo  1   2 , Marco Carbone  3   4 , Pietro Invernizzi  3   4 , Gianluca Perseghin  1   2
Affiliations
Free article

Exploring the landscape of steatotic liver disease in the general US population

Stefano Ciardullo et al. Liver Int. 2023 Nov.
Free article

Abstract

Background and objective: The aim of the present study is to explore the epidemiologic impact of the definition of steatotic liver disease (SLD) proposed by a multi-society (American Association for the Study of the Liver-the European Association for the Study of Liver Diseases-Asociación Latinoamericana para el Estudio del Hígado) Delphi consensus statement.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of US adults participating in the 2017-2020 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who were evaluated by vibration-controlled transient elastography. Hepatic steatosis and fibrosis were diagnosed by the median value of controlled attenuation parameter and liver stiffness measurement using cut-offs of 274 dB/m and 8.0 kPa, respectively. Recently proposed criteria for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), MetALD (MASLD + significant alcohol consumption), MASLD-Viral hepatitis and cryptogenic SLD were applied.

Results: SLD was present in 42.1% (95% CI: 40.3-43.9) of the 3173 included participants. Among patients with SLD, 99.4% met the metabolic dysfunction definition. Moreover, 89.4%, 7.7%, 2.4%, 0.4% and 0.1% were defined as MASLD, MetALD, MASLD-Viral, alcoholic liver disease (ALD) (significant alcohol consumption without metabolic dysfunction) and cryptogenic, respectively. No patients without metabolic dysfunction had significant liver fibrosis, which was present in 15.2%, 9.5% and 19.5% of patients with MASLD, MetALD and MASLD-viral, respectively. Approximately, 90% of the overall adult US population could be diagnosed with metabolic dysfunction according to the consensus criteria. A high degree of concordance was found between MASLD and the previously proposed metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease definition.

Conclusions: Metabolic dysfunction is present in almost all patients with SLD in the United States. The new change in diagnostic criteria did not significantly impact disease prevalence.

Keywords: Fibroscan; MAFLD; MASLD; steatotic liver disease.

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References

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