Validated early detection metrics reduce the population requiring liver fibrosis screening.

Authors

Laurens A van Kleef, Jesse Pustjens, Carolin V Schneider, Guillem Pera, Pere Toran, Maurice Michel, Kai M Schneider, Adriaan G Holleboom, Manuel Castro Cabezas, Maarten E Tushuizen, Harry L A Janssen, Jörn M Schattenberg, Pere Gines, Sven M Francque, Zobair M Younossi, Aleksander Krag, Willem Pieter Brouwer

Published in

Gastroenterology. Jun 15, 2026. Epub Jun 15, 2026.

Abstract

Current guideline-defined indicators for fibrosis screening identify a large proportion of the general population, burdening healthcare resources. We aimed to evaluate and refine indicators for fibrosis screening.
We included adults 18-80 years from NHANES 2017-2020 with BMI ≥18.5kg/m² without excessive alcohol use. We obtained the weighted-proportions of individuals across stratified screening indicators and targeted only subgroups with ≥10% LSM ≥8kPa risk for screening. These refined criteria were validated and linked with liver-related events in four general-population cohorts.
The derivation cohort included 5,904 adults (8.9% LSM ≥8kPa). Current guidelines identified 60-76% as screening-eligible, yielding an LSM ≥8kPa prevalence of 11-14% among those screening-eligible and 2% among those not eligible. Our refined strategy targeted 22% for screening, increasing prevalence to 28% among those screening-eligible while maintaining low prevalence (4%) in those not eligible. In the pooled validation cohort (n = 13,295; 7.0% LSM ≥8 kPa), 14% met the refined criteria. Results remained consistent across thresholds: LSM ≥8, ≥10, and ≥12 kPa prevalence among screening-eligible individuals was 22%, 13%, and 8%, respectively, and 4%, 2%, and 1% among those not eligible. In UK-Biobank (n=282,852), individuals meeting the refined criteria had ∼6-fold higher 10-year risks of incident cirrhosis (0.99% vs 0.18%) and liver-related death (0.40% vs 0.07%).
Current recommendations target 60-76% of adults for fibrosis screening. Our refined strategy reduced this to 10-22%, achieving significantly higher disease prevalence among those eligible for screening while maintaining a very low risk of increased LSM or liver-related events in those not eligible for screening.

PMID:
42297049
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 16 Jun 2026.

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