Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Dec 27, 2021; 13(12): 2150-2160
Published online Dec 27, 2021. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v13.i12.2150
Determination of “indeterminate score” measurements in lean nonalcoholic fatty liver disease patients from western Saudi Arabia
Yasir Mohammed Khayyat
Yasir Mohammed Khayyat, Department of Medicine, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah 13578, Saudi Arabia
Yasir Mohammed Khayyat, Department of Medicine, International Medical Centre, Jeddah 21451, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: Khayyat YM conceived of and designed the study, collected the data, and wrote the article, providing final approval of the manuscript to be published.
Institutional review board statement: The Institutional Review Board of International Medical Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia provided approval for this study (IRB No. 2019-11-215).
Informed consent statement: The requirement for consent was waived considering that there was no more than minimal risk to the subjects related to performance of FibroScan and blood tests measurements. The waiver was ensured to not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects, in which tests performed were already completed, regardless of the research.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares having no conflicts of interest related to this study and its publication.
Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yasir Mohammed Khayyat, FACP, FRCP (C), MBChB, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Umm Al Qura University, Al Abdiyah District, Makkah 13578, Saudi Arabia. ymkhayyat@uqu.edu.sa
Received: March 24, 2021
Peer-review started: March 24, 2021
First decision: June 15, 2021
Revised: June 24, 2021
Accepted: October 17, 2021
Article in press: October 17, 2021
Published online: December 27, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has emerged as a leading cause of chronic liver disease and its complications. Evaluation of fibrosis in NAFLD is of the utmost importance to early application of targeted intervention. The utilization of liver biopsy has diminished, due to patient unacceptance, sampling error, and availability of noninvasive measures of fibrosis. In this study of NAFLD cases, lean patients showed a relatively healthy metabolic profile, lower fibrosis degree and less frequent “indeterminate score“ than overweight and obese patients, among which increased age and serum alanine aminotransferase level were predictive factors for determination.