Liver Fibrosis and Cardiovascular Events

Abstract

Objectives: Liver fibrosis represents a common sequela of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and other chronic liver diseases. Noninvasive liver fibrosis scores (LFSs) aim to evaluate the severity of liver fibrosis. Whether LFSs can predict the risk of future cardiovascular events (CVEs) remains unclear. This systematic review aimed to clarify the association between liver fibrosis and CVEs by studying the value of LFSs, namely the Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) Index for Liver Fibrosis score and the NAFLD Fibrosis Score (NFS), for predicting CVEs.

Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were searched for relevant prospective studies. Retrieved articles were screened to confirm their eligibility for the systematic review. We evaluated the quality of the included studies using the National Institutes of Health tool.

Results: Twelve studies of high to fair quality were included in this systematic review. Of note, 10/12 studies reported an independent association between high LFSs and the risk of CVEs, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality (all P < 0.05). In addition, an advanced histological grade of liver fibrosis (grade 3 or 4) was suggestive of CVE occurrence. NAFLD also appeared to be associated with a higher risk of CVEs at any severity of fibrosis (all P < 0.05).

Conclusions: The findings of this review suggest that liver fibrosis in patients with NAFLD is an independent predictor of future adverse CVEs, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality. Noninvasive and easy-to-perform LFSs, including FIB-4 score and the NFS, appear useful in predicting such events in patients with a spectrum of cardiovascular diseases and the general population without known cardiovascular disease.