Liver fibrosis prediction models in a population of Latina and White women

Point-of-care tools to assess advanced liver fibrosis, including the NFS, BARD, FIB-4, and APRI, are of major interest due to their noninvasive nature. However, these tools have not been investigated extensively in the Latina population. Given that the highest rate of NAFLD in Latinos and the most severe presentation of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is more common in women, we hypothesize that ethnicity may play a role in predicting liver fibrosis, particularly in women. We determined whether ethnicity alone or in association with other parameters can predict the severity of fibrosis in women with NAFLD when included in four tools. We retrospectively included 562 Latina and 133 White Caucasian women with a history of NAFLD. Associations between ethnicity and liver fibrosis severity using the four fibrosis predictor models were studied using backward selection multinomial logistic regression. Latina women compared to White showed lower body mass index (p < 0.001), higher HbA1c (p < 0.001), lower prevalence of bariatric surgery (p < 0.001), lower likelihood to smoke (p = 0.003), and higher prevalence of chronic kidney disease stages 3-5 (p = 0.01). Some clinical variables were associated with fibrosis but not univocally in each tool. We did not find differences in the outcome of the four models when holding all other factors and examining ethnicity alone between Latina and White women. Although we did not include data on liver histology, this is the first study examining the role of ethnicity in predicting the severity of fibrosis using established noninvasive scores and documenting no association between Latina ethnicity and the severity of fibrosis in women with NAFLD.