COMPARISON OF SERUM FERRITIN LEVELS IN NAFLD PATIENTS AND HEALTHY CONTROLS

Abstract

Objective: To determine and compare serum ferritin levels in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients of our ethnicity.

Study Design: Cross sectional comparative study.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Radiology department of Shalamar Hospital, Medical OPD of Combined Military Hospital, Lahore and Medical OPD of Omer Hospital, Lahore, from Jul 2015 to Sep 2015.

Methodology: A total number of 43 non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients diagnosed after ultrasonography were included in the study. An equal number of age, gender and body mass index (BMI) matched healthy controls were selected by non-probability purposive sampling. Fasting serum ferritin levels, body mass index and waist circumference were measured in both the cases and controls. Data were entered and analyzed on SPSS 21.
For quantitative data median IQR was calculated. Mann Whitney U-test was used for group comparison. To find an association, Spearman‟s Ranked correlation was applied. A p-value of ≤0.05 was taken as significant.

Results: The non-alcoholic fatty liver disease cases had significantly higher serum ferritin (p<0.001) compared to the controls and a significant correlation between ferritin with body mass index and waist circumference in the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease subjects was recorded (p=0.04 and p=0.03 respectively).

Conclusion: The non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients have higher levels of serum ferritin as compared to the healthy controls in our ethnicity but within normal range.