ESPE Abstracts

Background: Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a frequent complication of obesity in both adults and children and there is an alarming increase in prevalence of both. Studying of risk factors for NAFLD in children and adolescents might help to select vulnerable groups to start an early intervention.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to detect the prevalence of NAFLD in pediatric obese patients (0-18.9 years, separately for groups ˂10 and ˃10 years old) and its association with age, gender, BMI, and other risk factors of NAFLD.

Methods: 697 children and adolescents with obesity (313 girls and 384 boys), with average age12.3±3.9 years and BMI SDS 4.6±2.5were included to the study. The prevalence of NAFLD was evaluated on the base of hepatic transaminases in obese individuals. Risk factors (age, gender, BMI-SDS, waist circumference, fasting glycaemia, total and HDL cholesterol, insulin resistance) were statistically calculated via t-test, Pearson correlations and multiple logistic regressions.

Results: NAFLD prevalence based on ALT was 19.5% in the whole study group. There was significantly higher prevalence of increased ALT in the group of children >10 years in comparison to children <10 years (21.4% vs. 14.5%, P=0.004), while the most significant increase of prevalence was in adolescents. Most important risk factors of increased ALT in children is BMI-SDS (∆R2=0.054; P=0.001), male gender (∆R2=0.043, P<0.001) and insulin resistance (∆R2=0.014, P=0.028) in the forward stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis.

Conclusions: Almost every 5th child with obesity has NAFLD based on the increased ALT, while the highest prevalence is in adolescents. Alarming is relatively high prevalence of NAFLD in children <10 years, that´s why also in this group should be screening and management of obesity and NAFLD very important. Risk of NAFLD is higher in boys and increases with severity of obesity and presence of insulin resistance.

Grant support: VEGA 2/0128/23