Correlation between Liver Fat Indices and Ultrasonography to determine NAFLD among Diabetic patients

Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and Diabetes Mellitus (mainly Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus – T2DM) strongly coexist with each other as both share common pathophysiological conditions that causes an imbalance in homeostasis. Non-invasive scores have been introduced to detect NAFLD using routine biochemical investigations and anthropometric measurements which provides simple, cost effective and patient friendly means of diagnosing fatty liver. Determination of the incidence of NAFLD patients at the Diabetic clinic, Colombo South Teaching Hospital and Association between ultrasonography based diagnosis of fatty liver with the two liver fat indices – Hepatic Steatosis index (HSI) and Fatty Liver Index (FLI) were the main objectives of this research. The study was a cross-sectional analytical study conducted involving 100 newly diagnosed diabetic patients selected using exclusion and inclusion criteria. Socio-demographic data, patient history and medical history was obtained using an interviewer based questionnaire. Anthropometric measurements were collected using standard methods. Blood was collected to conduct biochemical investigations and each participant underwent an ultrasounds scan to diagnose and stage fatty liver. The data were analyzed statistically. The incidence of NAFLD among T2DM was 82%. There was a significant correlation (p<0.05) between Ultrasonography results of NAFLD with HSI. The study also found a highly significant correlation (p<0.001) between ultrasonography results of NAFLD with FLI and also determined that it shows a significant difference between the categories; No fatty liver and grade 2 fatty liver or above which makes it a suitable marker to predict the presence or absence of fatty liver in Diabetic patients.