Abstract
Background
The development of point-of-care biomarkers of disease has become a major focus of interest in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS), BARD, FIB-4, and aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) are commonly used for advanced NAFLD fibrosis prediction. However, the performance of these scores among in a predominantly Hispanic patient population, a population with the highest prevalence of NAFLD, has not been examined.
Methods
We performed a retrospective study among patients with histologically confirmed and staged NAFLD at the Ben Taub General Hospital, Houston, Texas, to externally validate four noninvasive advanced fibrosis prediction scores. Their discriminatory ability was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). Sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative predictive values were calculated.
Results
We included 99 NAFLD patients, of whom 37 (37.4%) had advanced fibrosis. The cohort was predominantly Hispanic (73.7%). The AUROC for detecting advanced fibrosis were: NFS 0.79 (95% confidence interval, 0.69–0.88), BARD 0.76 (0.67–0.86), FIB-4 0.77 (0.68–0.87), and APRI 0.70 (0.59–0.81). Using the low cutoff for the NFS (− 1.455) had the highest sensitivity (81.1%) and the highest negative predictive value (85.4%) among the overall study population.
Conclusions
Noninvasive scores for advanced NAFLD fibrosis have moderate discriminatory ability in Hispanic patients with NFS having a small advantage. The AUROCs of these scores were similar to those reported in Caucasian populations. However, they had uniformly lower negative predictive values among our predominantly Hispanic study population, suggesting that they are not reliable for ruling out advanced fibrosis among this high-risk population.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rich NE, Oji S, Mufti AR, et al. Racial and ethnic disparities in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease prevalence, severity, and outcomes in the united states: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2018;16:198–210.e192.
Kanwal F, Kramer JR, Mapakshi S, et al. Risk of hepatocellular cancer in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Gastroenterology. 2018;155:1828–1837.
Bambha K, Belt P, Abraham M, et al. Ethnicity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Hepatology. 2012;55:769–780.
Guajardo-Salinas GE, Hilmy A. Prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and utility of FIBROspect II to detect liver fibrosis in morbidly obese Hispano-American patients undergoing gastric bypass. Obes Surg. 2010;20:1647–1653.
Angulo P, Hui JM, Marchesini G, et al. The NAFLD fibrosis score: a noninvasive system that identifies liver fibrosis in patients with NAFLD. Hepatology. 2007;45:846–854.
Harrison SA, Oliver D, Arnold HL, Gogia S, Neuschwander-Tetri BA. Development and validation of a simple NAFLD clinical scoring system for identifying patients without advanced disease. Gut. 2008;57:1441–1447.
Sterling RK, Lissen E, Clumeck N, et al. Development of a simple noninvasive index to predict significant fibrosis in patients with HIV/HCV coinfection. Hepatology. 2006;43:1317–1325.
Wai CT, Greenson JK, Fontana RJ, et al. A simple noninvasive index can predict both significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Hepatology. 2003;38:518–526.
Thrift AP, Kanwal F, El-Serag HB. Prediction models for gastrointestinal and liver diseases: too many developed, too few validated. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2016;14:1678–1680.
Kleiner DE, Brunt EM, Van Natta M, et al. Design and validation of a histological scoring system for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Hepatology. 2005;41:1313–1321.
Brunt EM, Kleiner DE, Wilson LA, Belt P, Neuschwander-Tetri BA. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) activity score and the histopathologic diagnosis in NAFLD: distinct clinicopathologic meanings. Hepatology. 2011;53:810–820.
McPherson S, Stewart SF, Henderson E, Burt AD, Day CP. Simple non-invasive fibrosis scoring systems can reliably exclude advanced fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Gut. 2010;59:1265–1269.
Shah AG, Lydecker A, Murray K, Tetri BN, Contos MJ, Sanyal AJ. Comparison of noninvasive markers of fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2009;7:1104–1112.
Passel JS, Cohen DV. U.S. population projections: 2005–2050. Washington, DC; 2008.
Funding
Dr. Hashem B. El-Serag is supported by NIDDK K24-04-107.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Balakrishnan, M., Seth, A., Cortes-Santiago, N. et al. External Validation of Four Point-of-Care Noninvasive Scores for Predicting Advanced Hepatic Fibrosis in a Predominantly Hispanic NAFLD Population. Dig Dis Sci 66, 2387–2393 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-020-06501-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-020-06501-1