Duarte MB, Czermainski J, Ferreira LF, Tovo CV, Carteri RB. Inflammatory parameters and liver fibrosis in patients with steatosis: A cross-sectional analysis. World J Hepatol 2026; 18(3): 111569 [DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v18.i3.111569]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Cristiane V Tovo, Department of Internal Medicine, Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre, R. Sarmento Leite, 245 Centro Histórico, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. cristianev@ufcspa.edu.br
Research Domain of This Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hepatol. Mar 27, 2026; 18(3): 111569 Published online Mar 27, 2026. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v18.i3.111569
Inflammatory parameters and liver fibrosis in patients with steatosis: A cross-sectional analysis
Melina Borba Duarte, Juliana Czermainski, Luis F Ferreira, Cristiane V Tovo, Randhall B Carteri
Melina Borba Duarte, Juliana Czermainski, Luis F Ferreira, Cristiane V Tovo, Department of Internal Medicine, Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Randhall B Carteri, Department of Nutrition, Centro Universitário CESUCA, Porto Alegre 94935-630, Brazil
Author contributions: Duarte MB and Carteri RB contributed to the methodological development and material support, collected data, interpreted results, conducted data analysis, wrote and revised the manuscript; Czermainski J contributed to methodological development and material support; Ferreira LF conducted data analysis and interpreted the results; Tovo CV contributed to the conception and critical review of the manuscript; Carteri RB designed the research project, collaborated in writing, and critically reviewed the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study used NHANES data, which are publicly available and fully de-identified, containing no personal identifiable information. The original data collection procedures, including survey methodologies and materials, received ethical approval from the Ethics Review Board of the National Center for Health Statistics.
Informed consent statement: All participants provided written informed consent at the time of enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in the production of this article.
Data sharing statement: The data used are open access data from NHANES. However, the database used for the analyses presented in this article is available upon request to the corresponding author.
Corresponding author: Cristiane V Tovo, Department of Internal Medicine, Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre, R. Sarmento Leite, 245 Centro Histórico, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. cristianev@ufcspa.edu.br
Received: July 3, 2025 Revised: August 20, 2025 Accepted: January 16, 2026 Published online: March 27, 2026 Processing time: 266 Days and 6.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study evaluated low-cost inflammatory indices derived from whole blood cell counts - such as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, aggregate index of systemic inflammation, and systemic inflammation response index - as potential noninvasive predictors of liver fibrosis in adults with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Although these indices showed statistically significant associations with liver injury, their overall predictive performance was poor, with no meaningful positive predictive value and low area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. C-reactive protein consistently outperformed the cell-based indices. These findings suggest that, despite their ease of calculation, inflammatory ratios are insufficient as standalone markers for fibrosis prediction, underscoring the need for more accurate and cost-effective direct biomarkers.
