Concepts and Treatment Approaches in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Table 1

Noninvasive diagnostic methods for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Method	Pros	Cons
Combined clinical and plasma scoring systems	Low cost, widely available, and acceptable diagnostic accuracy	Need for greater validation, decreased accuracy for staging fibrosis
Plasma CK-18	Can differentiate NAFLD or NASH and if fibrosis present	Not widely available, need for greater validation
Ultrasonography	Low cost, widely available, and safe	Liver fat not quantifiable and low sensitivity if <30%
Transient elastography	Safe, easy to use, and large probe for obese patients available	Expensive equipment, need for greater validation
Magnetic resonance elastography	Quantifies liver fat and can evaluate for fibrosis with good histology correlation	Expensive equipment, expensive testing, limited availability, and body size constraints