| Abstract: | INTRODUCTION: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a frequent and insidious disease. There is no consensus about the diagnosis, follow-up and treatment of this condition, mainly because our understanding of its natural history is incomplete and non-invasive diagnosis is not available. METHODS: This is a prospective, observational correlation study using a non-random sample taken from patients at the Chequeo Médico service in the Fundación Cardioinfantil Instituto de Cardiología (FCI-IC). Clinical and laboratory variables were registered including BMI, triglycerides and transaminases as well as ultrasonographic appearance of the liver. We conducted a non-parametric analysis of variance using the Kruskal-Wallis test and a correlation analysis using the Spearman correlation index. RESULTS: We included 619 patients. Statistically signi- ficant variation (P < 0.001) was observed in all the variables grouped according to the ultrasonographic appearance of the liver. Positive and statistically significant (P < 0.001) correlation coefficients were found as well for all variables. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasonographic evaluation of fatty infiltration is an attractive option for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with NAFLD because it is non-invasive, low-cost and widely available. These results suggest that this method might be useful for these purposes given the variation of all analyzed parameters according to the appearance of the liver. Correlation coefficients also suggest that the possibility of predicting serum levels of transaminases or triglycerides should be further evaluated. In this population, our results support that the ultrasonographic evaluation of the liver is useful for the diagnosis and follow-up of the patient with NAFLD. |
