Comparison of liver histology and fibrosis-4 scoring as tools for evaluating healthcare resource utilization and costs in patients with MASLD: a Swedish cohort study

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is associated with substantial clinical and economic burden. Fibrosis detection is key to disease management, but biopsy-defined staging is invasive, expensive, and associated with complications. We evaluated healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs by disease stage using biopsy-defined staging and fibrosis-4 (FIB-4; a simple, well-validated, non-invasive tool for assessing fibrosis severity), and compared their utility for predicting long-term outcomes in MASLD. This longitudinal observational cohort study included 959 adults with biopsy‑defined MASLD in Swedish medical records (1974-2020) linked to national registers. Patients had a documented fibrosis stage (F0-F4) and age-stratified FIB-4 score (low, indeterminate, high) at baseline. All-cause, liver-, and cardiovascular (CV)-related HCRU/costs were evaluated. The predictive capacity of biopsy and FIB-4 for high HCRU (≥80th percentile of hospitalizations + outpatient visits) was assessed using Harrell's concordance index. In general, patients with advanced fibrosis had significantly more all-cause and liver-related hospitalizations, longer length of stay, and higher costs than patients with less advanced fibrosis. The number and cost of liver-related outpatient visits increased significantly as fibrosis severity increased, a trend also observed when comparing high and low FIB-4 scores. Other HCRU/cost outcomes were inconsistent between scoring approaches. No association was found between CV-related HCRU and fibrosis severity. Biopsy and FIB-4 demonstrated similar predictive capacity for identifying patients with high HCRU. These data highlight the positive association between fibrosis severity and HCRU and costs in MASLD, and suggest that FIB-4 may have similar utility to biopsy for evaluating certain HCRU outcomes.