TY - JOUR T1 - Postmortem survey of haemoglobin A1c, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and liver fibrosis within a general population JF - Journal of Clinical Pathology JO - J Clin Pathol DO - 10.1136/jclinpath-2021-207998 SP - jclinpath-2021-207998 AU - Kristina-Ana Klaric AU - Jacqueline Louise Parai AU - Charis Anthea Kepron AU - Alfredo Eugene Walker AU - Christopher Mark Milroy Y1 - 2022/05/09 UR - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2022/05/08/jclinpath-2021-207998.abstract N2 - Aims Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fatty liver disease and fibrosis are associated with diabetes mellitus and obesity. Previous autopsy series have reported prevalence of fatty liver disease to be 11%–24%. Recent studies, using imaging and serology, suggest a prevalence of 20%–35%, NASH of 5% and advanced fibrosis of 2%–3%. We examined the prevalence of NASH and liver fibrosis in a general autopsy population.Methods A cross-sectional study of consecutive, adult, medicolegal autopsies over a 1-year period was conducted. Liver sections were scored for fibrosis, inflammation and steatosis using a modified NASH scoring system. Stepwise logistic regression was used to identify associations between NASH or moderate/severe fibrosis and several clinicopathological parameters, including postmortem haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c).Results Of 376 cases, 86 (22.9%) were classified as NASH. Prevalence of diabetes mellitus, body mass index (BMI) and postmortem HbA1c were significantly higher in NASH cases (39.5%, 32.3 kg/m2 and 6.88%) than non-NASH cases (12.1%, 27.0 kg/m2 and 5.73%). Decedents with moderate/severe fibrosis (6.9%) had higher prevalence of diabetes, BMI and HbA1c (50%, 31.4 kg/m2 and 6.7%) compared with those with no/mild fibrosis (16%, 28 kg/m2 and 5.9%). HbA1c ≥7% was found to be an independent predictor of NASH (OR 5.11, 95% CI 2.61 to 9.98) and advanced fibrosis (OR 3.94, 95% CI 1.63 to 9.53).Conclusions NASH and advanced fibrosis were higher in our general adult autopsy population compared with previously published estimates. This is a large series with histological evaluation showing that HbA1c >7.0% is independently associated with NASH and advanced fibrosis.Data are available upon reasonable request. ER -