Lobeglitazone, a Novel Thiazolidinedione, Improves Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Type 2 Diabetes: Its Efficacy and Predictive Factors Related to Responsiveness

Lee, Yong-ho; Kim, Jae Hyeon; Kim, So Ra; Jin, Heung Yong; Rhee, Eun-Jung; Cho, Young Min; Lee, Byung-Wan

As patients with NAFLD are mostly asymptomatic, the gold standard for its diagnosis is based on liver biopsy, which is highly invasive and expensive. Alternatively, imaging techniques, such as ultrasound (US), computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, are used for NAFLD diagnosis (10) . Among these methods, abdominal US is commonly used due to its relatively low expense. However, the major drawbacks of US include its inability to quantify liver fat amounts and its variability due to examiner techniques. Recently, a novel physical index, called controlled attenuation parameter (CAP), has been developed based on the properties of ultrasonic signals examined by transient liver elastography (Fibroscan ® ; Echosens, Paris, France). CAP relies on the concept that fat attenuates US propagation, and it non-invasively quantizes this ultrasonic attenuation at the center frequency of the FibroScan ® M probe (3.5 MHz) (11) . Furthermore, a large prospective study has demonstrated the accuracy of CAP in diagnosing NAFLD (12) .