Meta‐analysis: global prevalence, trend and forecasting of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease in children and adolescents, 2000–2021

Summary Background NAFLD is increasing in children. Aims To determine the recent trend and forecast the future global prevalence of paediatric NAFLD Methods We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane library databases from inception to 1 May 2021 for studies of children and adolescents (≤21 years) with NAFLD. Obesity was defined with weight at ≥95th percentile and overweight as 85th to <95th percentile as per the Center for Disease Control BMI‐for‐age percentile cut‐offs. Results From 3350 titles and abstracts, we included 74 studies (276,091 participants) from 20 countries/regions. We included 14 studies in the general NAFLD prevalence analysis, yielding an overall prevalence of 7.40% (95% CI: 4.17–12.81) regardless of the diagnostic method, and 8.77% (95% CI: 3.86–18.72) by ultrasound. Among continents with more than one study, the prevalence of NAFLD was 8.53% (95% CI: 5.71–12.55) for North America, 7.01% (95% CI: 3.51–13.53) for Asia, and 1.65% (95% CI: 0.97–2.80) for Europe. NAFLD prevalence regardless of the diagnostic method was 52.49% (95% CI: 46.23–58.68, 9159 participants) and 39.17% (95% CI: 30.65–48.42, 5371 participants) among obese and overweight/obese participants, respectively. For the general population, trend analysis from 2000 to 2017 indicates an increasing global prevalence of paediatric NAFLD from 4.62% to 9.02% at a yearly increase of 0.26%, whereas forecast analysis predicts a prevalence of 30.7% by 2040. Conclusion The prevalence of paediatric NAFLD varies by region and is 52.49% overall among the obese population and 7.40% in the general population. It is predicted to reach 30.7% by 2040.