Fatty liver index correlates with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, but not with newly diagnosed coronary artery atherosclerotic disease in Chinese patients

Background Fatty liver index (FLI) was recently established to predict non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in general population, which is known to be associated with coronary artery atherosclerotic disease (CAD). This study aims to investigate whether FLI correlates with NAFLD and with newly diagnosed CAD in a special Chinese population who underwent coronary angiography. Methods Patients with CAD (n = 231) and without CAD (n = 482) as confirmed by coronary angiography were included. Among them, 574 patients underwent B-ultrosonography were divided into NAFLD group (n = 209) and non-NAFLD group (n = 365). Correlation between FLI and NAFLD was analyzed using pearson’s correlation. The associations between FLI and NAFLD as well as CAD were assessed using logistic regression. The predictive accuracy of FLI for NAFLD was evaluated using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. Results FLI was significantly higher in NAFLD group (37.10 ± 1.95) than in non-NAFLD group (17.70 ± 1.04), P 0.05). Conclusions FLI showed good correlation with NAFLD in patients who underwent coronary angiography, but not with newly diagnosed CAD. This might be underestimated because some patients in non-CAD group may have other underlying cardiovascular diseases.