Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in Filipino North American patients: Results from a multi-ethnic cohort.

BACKGROUND

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is more prevalent in certain ethnicities due to a combination of genetic, environmental, and metabolic factors. North American Filipino populations may have lifestyle and metabolic risk factors for NAFLD; however, the prevalence of NAFLD in this group is unknown. We sought to determine whether Filipino patients are over-represented in a multi-ethnic NAFLD cohort and describe their clinical presentation, primarily compared to other ethnicities in the same geographical region and secondarily compared to Manila-based Filipino patients.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted with patients with NAFLD who were followed at the Hepatology Clinic at Vancouver General Hospital, Canada, from January 2015 to August 2018. Data were extracted for clinicodemographic data, ethnicity, anthropometric measures, blood work, and transient elastography (TE). External comparison data was obtained online from the Metro Vancouver census and a NAFLD study conducted in Manila, Philippines.

RESULTS

Of 317 patients meeting inclusion criteria for the study, 224 patients had complete datasets. The mean age was 51.1 years, and 50% were female. There were 139 (62%) Caucasian and other ethnicity patients, 55 (25%) Asian patients, and 30 (13%) Filipino patients. Compared to other ethnic groups, the Filipino group had similar clinical characteristics, including NAFLD fibrosis scores and TE. Of included NAFLD patients, the proportion of Filipino patients (13.39%) was significantly greater than the proportion of Filipino residents in Metro Vancouver (5.52%,

CONCLUSIONS

While Filipino patients have not previously been examined in multi-ethnic NAFLD studies, they may represent a high-risk population. Further research is needed to clarify the prevalence and presentation of NAFLD in Filipino Canadian patients, as this appears to be a significant health issue in this community.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2022 Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

This work has been accepted for presentation as a poster at the 2021 Liver Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, Anaheim, California, USA. EM Yoshida has been an investigator of clinical trials sponsored by Intercept, Pfizer, Madrigal, Genfit, Celgene, Novodisc, Gilead, Merck, and Abbvie; he has received an unrestricted research grant from Paladin Laboratories, and has received honouraria for CME/Ad Board lectures sponsored by Intercept, Lupin, Gilead, and Abbvie. The other authors have nothing to disclose.