title: Factors associated or related to with pathological severity of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been more and more often regarded as a serious disorder, because nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a part of NAFLD, may progress to the end stage of liver disease. Though an advanced age, obesity, diabetes mellitus (DM) etc. being not infrequent conditions in Korea, are known to exacerbate the severity of this disease, there are only a few Korean reports on this subject. The purpose of this study is to identify possible factors that might add up to the pathological severity of this disorder in Korean patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Of 60 patients with steatosis found at liver biopsy, 43 NAFLD patients were reviewed retrospectively after exclusion of other liver diseases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The cases of steatosis were mild, moderate, and severe in 9. 10, and 24 patients, respectively. The degree of necroinflammatory activity was mild, moderate, and severe in 33, 9, and 1 patients, respectively. There were no established factors directly related to these classes. As to fibrosis, the cases were classified as none, mild, moderate, severe, and cirrhotic in 9, 11, 16, 7, and 0 patients, respectively. The stage of fibrosis correlated with the age (p < 0.001), BMI (body mass index) (p = 0.032), and the platelet count (p = 0.009), but the presence of NASH was associated only with BMI (p = 0.002) and obesity (p = 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It seems that there are no factors that are directly related to the degree of steatosis or necroinflammatory activity. BMI seems to be a unique factor directly related to both the severity of fibrosis and the presence of NASH. The age and the platelet count are factors that are directly related to the degree of fibrosis but not to the presence of NASH.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Keimyung University School of Medicine, Daegu, Korea. seenae99@dsmc.or.kr
authors.forename: Kyung Sik
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Yeong Seok
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Heo Won
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Sang Hyuck
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: Byung Guk
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.forename: Jun Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: Kwang Bum
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Jae Seok
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: Sung Hoon
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Yu Na
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Gap Chul
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000097:blood / Q000145:classification / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea; D008297:Male; D010976:Platelet Count; D011379:Prognosis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index