Acute ethanol effect on erythrocytes in vitro: a new approach to differential diagnostics of fatty liver disease

The aim of the work is to study the differences in changes in the viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes (amplitude of deformation, summarized viscosity and summarized rigidity) in the dynamics of interaction with ethanol in vitro in patients with non-alcoholic (NAFLD) and alcoholic (AFLD) fatty liver disease for use in differential diagnostics. Materials and methods. 50 men were examined, 24 - with NAFLD (46.5±1.5 years), 26 - with AFLD (48.6±1.2 years). The study of viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes was carried out by dielectrophoresis with an electro-optical cell detection system. The levels of erythrocytes were evaluated before and after in vitro exposure for 300 s with 10 μl of a 0.02% ethanol solution in the dynamics of the experiment. Results. In erythrocytes of patients with NAFLD after exposure with ethanol, a decrease in strain amplitude was revealed against the background of an increase in summarized viscosity and summarized rigidity, on the contrary, in erythrocytes in patients with AFLD, an increase in the ability to deform was observed with a decrease in generalized viscosity and rigidity (p <0.01-0.05). Inverse reaction of cells to ethanol exposure allowed to distinguish patients with fatty liver disease of various origins with sensitivity of 87.5%, specificity of 96.2%, predictive value of positive - 95.4% and negative - 89.3%, as well as an accuracy of 92%. The proposed method for distinguishing fatty liver disease of various origins is promising due to its simplicity, high throughput and low cost.