Evaluation of relationship between grading of fatty liver and severity of atherosclerotic finding.

PURPOSE Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a feature of metabolic syndrome and has a high prevalence in the general population. OBJECTIVE To determine the severity of atherosclerotic finding in various grade of NAFLD. MATERIAL AND METHODS We examined 250 consecutive patients with various grade of NAFLD and 85 control subjects matched for age, gender, to determine carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in each groups. RESULTS The mean CIMT in patients with G1, G2 and G3 NAFLD were 0.78±0.15 mm, 0.82±0.11mm and 0.85±0.16mm respectively. The differences in CIMT between the various grades of NAFLD were statistically significant (p=0.01). CONCLUSION According to our study results the presence of NAFLD; severity of atherosclerosis will be higher parallel with severity of fatty liver infiltration. Therefore, Patients with NAFLD especially high-grade fatty liver may be candidate to be investigated for the presence CAD.