The impact of steatosis on liver stiffness measurement in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Recently, several studies have indicated that liver stiffness measurement (LSM) using FibroScan accurately predicts liver fibrosis. This study investigated the impact of steatosis on LSM in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB).

METHODOLOGY: The study prospectively enrolled 162 patients (106 men and 56 women) with CHB who underwent both a liver biopsy and LSM between January 2005 and June 2008. We examined the overall univariate correlation between steatosis and LSM value and also performed a multivariate regression analysis to identify independent variables influencing LSM values.

RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 44.4 years and the mean body mass index was 23.3 +/- 2.8kg/m2. The fibrosis stage ranged from F1 to F4 in 16 patients (9.9%), 37 (22.8%), 17 (10.5%) and 92 (56.8%), respectively. Steatosis was S0 in 128 patients (79.0%), S1 in 28 (17.3%), S2 in 6 (3.7%) and S3 in none. No overall significant correlation was noted between LSM value and steatosis (r = 0.023, p = 0.770). In the multivariate linear regression analysis, only fibrosis stage showed statistical significance (r = 0.268, p < 0.001), while steatosis did not (r = 0.013, p = 0.841).

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that mild to moderate steatosis does not have a significant impact on LSM values in patients with CHB.