Screening for metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease:Time to discard the emperor’s clothes of normal liver enzymes?

Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease(MAFLD)is the most prevalent chronic liver condition worldwide.Current liver enzyme-based screening methods have limitations that may missed diagnoses and treatment delays.Regarding Chen et al,the risk of developing MAFLD remains elevated even when alanine aminotransferase levels fall within the normal range.Therefore,there is an urgent need for advanced diagnostic techniques and updated algorithms to enhance the accuracy of MAFLD diagnosis and enable early intervention.This paper proposes two potential screening methods for identifying individuals who may be at risk of developing MAFLD:Lowering these thresholds and promoting the use of noninvasive liver fibrosis scores.

Validation of Non-invasive Fibrosis Scores for Predicting Advanced Fibrosis in Metabolic-associated Fatty Liver Disease

Background and Aims:Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease(MAFLD)is a newly proposed terminology from 2020;yet,the applicability of conventional noninvasive fi-brosis models is still unknown for it.We aimed to evaluate the performance of conventional noninvasive fibrosis scores in MAFLD.Methods:The NHANES 2017-2018 datasets were used to compare the performances of different non-invasive fibrosis scores in MAFLD,including the aspartate aminotransferase(AST)to platelet ratio index(APRI),body mass index(BMI)-AST/alanine aminotransferase(ALT)ratio and diabetes score(BARD),fibrosis-4 index(FIB-4),and NAFLD fibrosis score(NFS).Moreover,Asian patients with biopsy-proven MAFLD were enrolled to further validate the findings.Results:A total of 2,622 participants in the Na-tional Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(NHANES)cohort and 293 patients with MAFLD in the Asian cohort were included.Patients in the Asian cohort had a lower BMI and higher liver enzymes(p<0.001).The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve(AUROC)of NFS was the largest in the NHANES cohort and Asian cohorts(0.679 and 0.699,respectively).The AUROC of NFS was followed by APRI,FIB-4,and BARD in the NHANES cohort(0.616,0.601,and 0.589,respectively).In the Asian cohort,the AUROC of APRI,FIB-4,and BARD for predicting advanced fibrosis were 0.625,0.683,and 0.615,respectively.The performance of FIB-4 was better in the Asian cohort than that in the NHANES cohort.Conclusions:NFS is better for predicting advanced fibrosis in MAFLD.FIB-4 can be an al-ternative choice for MAFLD with high liver enzymes when NFS is unavailable.Novel efficient noninvasive fibrosis scor-ing systems are highly required for patients with MAFLD.