Cardiovascular risk profile in patients with hepatic steatosis

Background. Fatty liver disease (FLD) is composed of a wide spectrum including metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in this populational group. Many risk estimation systems are in existence for improving the management of population groups, but currently, none of the available risk prediction models are authenticated in patients with hepatic steatosis. Materials and methods. Transversal, observational, prospective, case control study has been included 680 patients with MAFLD and 96 control subjects without MAFLD. Experimental group was divided in tree subgroups: A - overweight or obesity (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 ) N= 498; B – lean/normal weight (BMI <25kg/m2 ) N= 58 and C – Type 2 diabetes mellitus N= 156. For each patient, cardiovascular risk was estimated using the Framingham equation (risk ≥ 20% – high), SCORE risk chat (risk ≥ 10% – high) and Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Algorithm from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (AHA/ACC) (risk ≥ 20% – high). Results. Model Risk SCORE and Risk ACC/AHA had identified the low proportion of patients with high risk, however, Risk FRS determined the highest proportion of the patients as being ‘at high-risk’ (Risk SCORE -7% vs Risk ACC/AHA - 15% vs Risk FRS - 38%, p <0.001). Statistically significant correlations were found between the scoring systems Risk FRS and Risk ACC/AHA (Pearson’s r = 0.939, p = 0.0001, Spearman`s rho=0.960, p <0.001). The highest proportion of the patients as being ‘at high-risk’ from group C – DMT2 was found by model RiskFRS – 82.7%, with statistically significant difference between group A and B – 28.1 % vs 6.8%, p < 0.001. The same tendency was observed for RiskSCORE and Risk ACC/AHA (RiskSCORE DMT2 – 26.3% vs Risk ACC/AHA DMT2 – 46.8%), bur these scores have identified the low proportion of patients with high risk in this populational group. Conclusions. The study shows that RiskFRS appeared to be most useful CVD risk assessment model in hepatic steatosis, RiskFRS is likely to identify a greater number of patients at ‘high-risk’ as compared to Risk SCORE and Risk ACC/AHA.