Clinical research studyCarotid Artery Intima-media Thickness in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Section snippets
Patients
We studied 125 consecutive patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (109 males, 16 females, mean age 49 ± 13 years) who presented to our liver unit between June 2002 and December 2004. The diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease was based on ultrasonography and confirmed by biopsy in 54 patients. Thirty-four (27%) patients were referred because of abnormalities in liver tests, 16 (13%) for dyslipidemia, 45 (36%) for hyperferritinemia, and 30 (24%) for liver steatosis detected by
Results
The baseline demographic, clinical, and biochemical characteristics of patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and controls are shown in Table 1. HDL cholesterol (40.2 ± 11 vs 50.2 ± 12 mg/100 mL, P ≤.0001), triglycerides (158 ± 96 vs 122 ± 27 mg/100 mL, P ≤.0001), fasting glucose (96.6 ± 19 vs 92.5 ± 13 mg/100 mL, P ≤.01), HOMA-IR (3.8 ± 2.7 vs 2.9 ± 1.7), alanine-aminotransferase (46.6 ± 35 vs 11.6 ± 5.2 UI/L), gamma-glutamyltransferase (58.8 ± 78 vs 25.2 ± 16 UI/L, and cardiovascular risk (FRS, 10 years %)
Discussion
In the present study, we evaluated intima-media thickness and looked for carotid plaques in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease with no or only mild liver function test alterations, and investigated the relationship between vascular damage and metabolic alterations. In our paired-sample case-control study performed in a large series of subjects, we demonstrated that patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, independently of the severity of liver damage, had higher intima-media
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Supported by grants from FIRST 2004-2005, COFIN 2004, and Ricerca Corrente IRCCS 2004-2005.