The epidemiology of nonalcolic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in patients with glucose metabolism disorder

In recent years, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; its incidence has gradually increased and it has taken the first place among chronic liver diseases. This global and progressive disease is thought to be a new complication of diyabetes. For this purpose, we aimed to calculate the prevalence of NAFLD in diyabetic and prediyabetic patients. As a secondary conclusion, we focused on the suitability of the international noninvasive scoring systems used by primary care physicians for easy diagnosis of the disease for diyabetic and prediyabetic patients, and the power of certain anthropometric measurements in demonstrating NAFLD in these patients. With this, our aim is to have an idea about the presence of NAFLD in diyabetic and prediyabetic patients with simple anthropometric measurements. For this study, the data of patients diagnosed with glucose metabolism disorder who applied to the endocrinology polyclinics between 01.06.2020-01.06.2021 from the Baskent University Ankara Hospital electronic database were retrospectively scanned and all 196 patients who met the inclusion criteria were included in the study without randomization. As a result of the study, the prevalence of NAFLD in the diyabetic and prediyabetic patient groups was determined as 90,8% and 76,5%, respectively. FLI and NAFLD fibrosis score in international non-invasive scoring systems were correlated with ultrasound for diyabetic and prediyabetic patients in our study, but FIB-4 score could not provide the same correlation in our study. Among anthropometric measurements, waist circumference, neck circumference, skinfold score and their ratios to each other are predicted to give an idea for NAFLD within certain cut-off points, and additional studies with larger populations are needed.