Miura K, Maeda H, Morimoto N, Watanabe S, Tsukui M, Takaoka Y, Nomoto H, Goka R, Kotani K, Yamamoto H. Utility of FibroScan-based scoring systems to narrow the risk group of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease with comorbidities. World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol 2022; 13(3): 96-106 [PMID: 35720167 DOI: 10.4291/wjgp.v13.i3.96]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Kouichi Miura, Doctor, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Jichi Medical University School of Medicine, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan. miura385@jichi.ac.jp
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Kouichi Miura, Hiroshi Maeda, Naoki Morimoto, Shunji Watanabe, Mamiko Tsukui, Yoshinari Takaoka, Hiroaki Nomoto, Rie Goka, Hironori Yamamoto, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Jichi Medical University School of Medicine, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan
Kazuhiko Kotani, Division of Community and Family Medicine, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Japan
Author contributions: Miura K designed the study and performed acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data, and drafted the initial manuscript; Maeda H participated in acquisition and analysis of data; Morimoto N participated in acquisition of data; Watanabe S participated in acquisition of data; Tsukui M participated in acquisition of data; Takaoka Y participated in acquisition of data; Nomoto H participated in acquisition of data; Goka R participated in acquisition of data; Kotani K, a specialist of biostatistics, reviewed the statistical analysis and revised the draft carefully; Yamamoto H revised the draft carefully.
Institutional review board statement: The present study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Jichi Medical University (20-175).
Informed consent statement: A written informed consent was waived because of the retrospective nature of this study. Instead, opt-out consent documents were shown on the website of Jichi Medical University for patients who did not wish to participate in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflict of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy policies.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kouichi Miura, Doctor, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Jichi Medical University School of Medicine, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan. miura385@jichi.ac.jp
Received: January 8, 2022 Peer-review started: January 8, 2022 First decision: March 9, 2022 Revised: March 21, 2022 Accepted: May 14, 2022 Article in press: May 14, 2022 Published online: May 22, 2022 Processing time: 130 Days and 4.7 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
It is necessary to narrow the high-risk group of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients with comorbidities, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and esophagogastric varices (EGV).
Research motivation
Although the fibrosis-4 index is an excellent formula to narrow the high-risk group, there remain many patients to be ruled out.
Research objectives
This study aimed to assess the utility of VCTE-based scoring systems to narrow the risk group of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease with comorbidities.
Research methods
We performed a cross-sectional study to investigate the usefulness of VCTE-based scoring systems and other fibrosis markers to narrow the high-risk group of patients with NAFLD.
Research results
The high-risk group of Agile 3+ could narrow the patients with HCC and/or EGV without missing one patient. The high-risk group of Agile 4 showed a high PPV for patients with EGV.
Research conclusions
The brand new VCTE-based scoring systems, Agile 3+ and Agile 4, are useful to narrow the NAFLD patient group, in which patients may have HCC and/or EGV.
Research perspectives
Agile 3+ and Agile 4 will be used for screening of NAFLD patients with HCC and/or EGV.
