Abstract
Background. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is now acknowledged as a complex public health issue linked to sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and related disorders like type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Aims. We aimed to retrieve its trends out of the huge amount of published data. Therefore, we conducted an extensive literature search to identify possible biomarker and/or biomarker combinations by retrospectively assessing and evaluating common and novel biomarkers to predict progression and prognosis of obesity related liver diseases. Methodology. We analyzed finally 62 articles accounting for 157 cohorts and 45,288 subjects. Results. Despite the various approaches, most cohorts were considerably small and rarely comparable. Also, we found that the same standard parameters were measured rather than novel biomarkers. Diagnostics approaches appeared incomparable. Conclusions. Further collaborative investigations on harmonizing ways of data acquisition and identifying such biomarkers for clinical use are necessary to yield sufficient significant results of potential biomarkers.
Highlights
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is acknowledged as a health issue with an estimated prevalence of 30% in adults [1], of which approximately 25% progresses to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) [2]
We evaluated 81 different parameters provided in the included studies
First: our results demonstrated that no individual biomarkers are path-breaking, but a composition of biomarkers/biomarker grouping may be successful in clinical detection of NAFLD and its progression
Summary
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is acknowledged as a (public) health issue with an estimated prevalence of 30% in adults [1], of which approximately 25% progresses to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) [2]. The pathways of NAFLD/NASH and their alcoholinduced counterpart diseases are multifactorial, involving the liver metabolism key players: cytokines, adipokines, and apoptosis [7]. Alternative tools such as ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [8] are becoming common in clinical routine; anyway in NAFLD/NASH diagnostics liver biopsy still remains the golden standard [9, 10]. We conducted an extensive literature search to identify possible biomarker and/or biomarker combinations by retrospectively assessing and evaluating common and novel biomarkers to predict progression and prognosis of obesity related liver diseases. Further collaborative investigations on harmonizing ways of data acquisition and identifying such biomarkers for clinical use are necessary to yield sufficient significant results of potential biomarkers
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