SERUM FERRITIN; A STRONG NON-INVASIVE PREDICTOR FOR NAFLD PROGRESSION

Abstract

Objective: To determine and compare serum ferritin in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients of our ethnicity and to find a predictive value of serum ferritin in designating the progression of the disease. Study Design: Cross-sectional diagnostic study Place and Duration of Study: Shalamar Hospital and Combined Military Hospital Lahore Pakistan, from Mar to Jul 2019. Methodology: On abdominal ultrasonography and raised LFTs, age, gender and BMI matched 129 subjects were classified as cases and controls. After that NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) was calculated in the cases who had hyper-echoic liver margins and later subjects were divided into 43 healthy controls (group A), 66 subject with steatosis (group B) and 20 subjects with steatohepatitis (group C). Fasting serum ferritin, insulin, glucose levels were measured and HOMA-IR was calculated using {Glucose (mg/dl) × insulin (μlU/ml) / 405} formula. Data was entered and analysed on SPSS version 21. For group compari...... Results: There was a significant difference between the serum ferritin among all the groups. Area under the curve of serum ferritin for group B and group C were 0.603 and 0.885 and serum ferritin levels of ≥40.75 ng/ml with sensitivity of 94% and specificity of 69% were declared to be of the best diagnostic value. While the value of ≥67.55ng/ml of serum ferritin is the best predictor ......... ... Conclusion: Serum ferritin has a good positive predictive value.