To investigate the longitudinal impact of ANA on clinical outcomes and survival in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), antinuclear antibody (ANA), was found in 16.9% of 923 biopsy-proven NAFLD patients, but none of them had histologic autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), or developed AIH after a mean followup of 106 months.
Although ANA-positive cases had a higher prevalence of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis at baseline, the occurrence of liver-related events, hepatocellular carcinoma, cardiovascular events, extrahepatic malignancy and overall survival was similar to ANAnegative cases.
Once AIH has been ruled out, the long-term outcomes and survival are not affected by the presence of ANA in patients with NAFLD.
Younes, R., Govare, O., Petta, S., et al. “Presence of Serum Antinuclear Antibodies Does Not Impact Long-Term Outcomes in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.” American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2020; Vol. 115, pp. 1289-1292.