The Role of ElastPQ in Assessing Liver Stiffness for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Patients Treated with Atypical Antipsychotic Drugs

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of elastography point quantification (ElastPQ) for the quantitative assessment of stiffness in the fatty liver disease in mental disorder patients and to provide a noninvasive detection method for non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) caused by atypical antipsychotics drugs (AAPDs). METHODS: A total number of 168 mental disorder patients treated with AAPDs and 58 healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. All the subjects underwent ultrasound and ElastPQ tests. The basic data of the patients were analyzed. RESULTS: BMI, liver function, and the value of ElastPQ were considerably higher in the patient group than that in the healthy volunteers. The values of liver stiffness obtained by ElastPQ were increased gradually from 3.48(3.14–3.81) kPa in the normal liver to 8.15(6.44–9.88) in the severe fatty liver. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) for the diagnosis of fatty liver with ElastPQ were 0.85, 0.79, 0.80, and 0.87 for the diagnosis of normal, mild, moderate, and severe steatosis, respectively, with a sensitive/specificity of 79%/76.4%, 85.7%/78.3%, 86.2%/73%, and 81.3%/82.1%, correspondingly. Moreover, ElastPQ in the olanzapine group was higher than those in the risperidone and aripiprazole groups (5.11(3.83–5.61) kPa vs 4.35(3.63–4.98) kPa, P < 0.05; 5.11(3.83–5.61) kPa vs 4.79(4.18–5.24) kPa, P < 0.05). After one-year treatment, the value of ElastPQ was 4.43(3.85–5.22) kPa, but it was 5.81(5.09–7.33) kPa in patients treated for more than three years. This value increased with treatment prolongation (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: ElastPQ is a real-time, quantitative method for assessing the stiffness of NAFLD. The liver stiffness value could be varied in the different stages of fatty liver. Olanzapine has a considerable influence on liver stiffness. The long-term use of AAPDs can increase the stiffness value of fatty liver.