Hepatic fibrosis of any origin in a large population of type 2 diabetes patients.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Excess morbidity and mortality from chronic liver disease in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is recognized; however, the clinical features associated with liver fibrosis (LF) of any origin are poorly known. Metabolic status and/or coexisting complications over time may play a role.

METHODS AND

RESULTS

We interrogated the database of the diabetes unit network of Piedmont (Italy) (71,285 T2DM patients) and calculated a fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4) from data recorded between 2006 and 2019. Comorbidities were obtained by linkage with hospital data. The study population was subdivided by aetiology of LF (alcoholic, viral, metabolic). Associations between upper level of FIB-4 and demographic and clinical variables were evaluated separately for each group using robust Poisson models and presented as prevalence ratios. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of T2DM patients had some form of LF: viral (0.44%) and alcoholic (0.53%) forms were far less frequent than metabolic ones (22.7%). Only 1 out of 5 of these patients had a history of known cirrhosis. Age, male sex, duration of diabetes, coronary disease, hyperuricemia, renal failure, and features of liver failure (e.g., lower body-mass index, lipid and HbA1c levels) were positively associated with metabolic LF. More intensive treatments with insulin and segretagogue emerged as a significant predictive indicators of LF of metabolic origin.

CONCLUSION

A sizeable proportion of T2DM patients has some degree of LF, mainly of metabolic origin and often undiagnosed. There is a need to clarify whether the link between insulin therapy and advanced LF is causal or not.