Abstract
BACKGROUND: It remains essential for patient safety to develop non-invasive diagnostic tools to diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver rather than invasive techniques. AIM: Our case-control study was to address the value of circulating miRNAs as a potential non-invasive biomarker for the diagnosis of non-alcoholic fatty acid diseases (NAFLD) and monitoring of disease progression. METHODS: Routine clinical assessment, laboratory tests, anthropometric study, and liver biopsy results reported for 210 patients with NAFLD (124 patients of simple steatosis (SS) and 86 of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)). Apparently matched for age and gender, healthy participants (n= 90) were enrolled as a control group. Serum samples were tested for micro-RNAs (-122, -34a and -99a) by quantitative-PCR. RESULTS: By histopathology, 124 of the NAFLD group were of SS and 86 patients were of NASH. Compared with the control subjects, both mi-RNA-122 and -34a levels were increased in NAFLD (p< 001) and at a cut-off = 1.261, mi-RNA-122 had 92% sensitivity, 85% specificity to differentiate NAFLD from healthy controls, while mi-RNA-99a were significantly decreased in NAFLD patients with an observed decrease in disease severity, and at a cut-off = 0.46, miRNA-99a had 94% sensitivity and 96% specificity to discriminate SS from NASH. CONCLUSION: The integration of a circulating mi-RNA panel to diagnose NAFLD cases and to discriminate between SS and NASH. Large-scale study is still needed to verify the other mi-RNA profiles and their role in NAFLD pathogenesis and targeting therapy.