Performance of liver stiffness measurements obtained with FibroScan is affected by glucose metabolism in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

BACKGROUND: The performance of liver stiffness measurements (LSMs) obtained using FibroScan can be affected by several factors, and cut-off values are different for fibrosis caused by various aetiologies. The study aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of LSM in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients with abnormal glucose metabolism and investigate whether the LSM value would be affected by metabolic indicators. METHODS: The study involved 91 NAFLD patients with abnormal glucose metabolism who underwent liver biopsy. The diagnostic accuracy of LSM value was evaluated by the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves, with the biopsy results taken as the gold standard. Multivariate linear regression and subgroup analysis were performed to determine the correlated indicators. RESULTS: The areas under the ROC curves (AUROCs) of LSM values for detecting fibrosis stage ≥1, 2, 3 and 4 were 0.793 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.695–0.871), 0.764 (95% CI: 0.663–0.846), 0.837 (95% CI: 0.744–0.906) and 0.902 (95% CI: 0.822–0.955), with cut-off values of 6.3, 7.6, 8.3 and 13.8 kPa, respectively. Multivariate linear regression demonstrated that haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c, β = 0.205, P = 0.026) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT, β = 0.192, P = 0.047) were independently associated with the LSM value after adjustment for fibrosis stage, ballooning and inflammation grade from liver biopsy. Subgroup analysis demonstrated that LSM values were slightly higher in patients with HbA1c ≥7% than in those with HbA1c < 7% and in patients with body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m(2) than in those with BMI < 30 kg/m(2). CONCLUSIONS: FibroScan was valuable for the evaluation of liver fibrosis in NAFLD patients with abnormal glucose metabolism. FibroScan is recommended to evaluate severe fibrosis, especially to exclude advanced fibrosis. Glucose metabolism state may affect LSM values. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12944-021-01453-5.