Carotid Intima Media Thickness (CIMT) in Nondiabetic Patients with non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

Introduction: Nonalcoholic Fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is currently the most common cause of abnormal liver function tests observed in the hepatology practice. Given the strong association between NAFLD and the Metabolic syndrome risk factors, patients with NAFLD would be expected to have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.Aim of Work: The aim of the present work was to compare carotid intima-media thickness measured by arterial carotid duplex in patients with NAFLD diagnosed by transabdominal ultrasound and normal control persons and to correlate it with the different risk factors of atherosclerosis namely the lipid pattern, blood glucose levels, C-reactive protein, body mass index and hypertension.Results: Our study revealed a significant increase in carotid IMT in patients with NAFLD (0.73±0.1mm) than normal control persons (0.50±0.08mm) which was highly significant (p value 0.001). There was an association between the increase in the liver enzymes levels and the increase in carotid IMT in patients with NAFLD which was highly significant (p value 0.001). Moreover NAFLD patients had higher cholesterol, LDL and CRP levels as compared to control with a statistically highly significant p value (p value 0.001).Conclusion: Our findings support the hypothesis that the presence of NAFLD is strongly associated with early carotid atherosclerosis.