Liver, Pancreas, and Biliary TractLiver fibrosis in overweight patients☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Design of the study
This retrospective study included 93 consecutive patients with a body mass index (BMI) higher than 25 kg/m2 for at least 5 years, referred to our clinic between January 1988 and June 1999 for investigation of persistent, unexplained abnormal liver function tests. Abnormal liver function tests were defined as an elevation of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and/or aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and/or γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) levels above the upper limit of normal. All patients had a
Study population
Ninety-three consecutive patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were included in this study. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data are listed in Table 1. The ranges of ALT, γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), and AST elevations were 1-6.7, 1-19, and 1-4.7, respectively. Five patients (5%) had normal ALT, 15 (16%) normal GGT, and 36 (39%) normal AST. Six patients (6%) had abnormal ALT alone (normal AST and GGT), 3 (3%) patients had abnormal GGT alone, whereas no patient had abnormal AST
Discussion
The main finding of this study was that 30% of overweight patients with abnormal liver function test results had septal fibrosis, including 11% who had silently progressed to cirrhosis. This high prevalence of septal fibrosis might have been biased by several factors. First, because this study is retrospective, we cannot rule out unknown biases in referral for hepatologic exploration. Therefore, our analysis might not apply as faithfully to all overweight patients with abnormal liver function
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Françoise Leverier and Sandrine Guyon for secretarial assistance and Janet Ratziu for English language assistance.
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Address requests for reprints to: Vlad Ratziu, M.D., Service d'Hépatogastroenterologie, Hopital Pitié-Salpétrière, 47-83 Bd. de l'Hopital, Paris, 75013 France. e-mail: [email protected]; fax: (33) 1 42 16 14 25.
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Supported by a grant from the Association Pour la Recherche sur le Cancer (to V.R.).