What are 'true normal' liver stiffness values using FibroScan®? A prospective study in healthy living liver and kidney donors in South Korea

Aims: To identify the normal range of liver stiffness (LS) values by recruiting healthy living liver and kidney donors in South Korea. Methods:: Liver stiffness measurement (LSM) was performed in 69 healthy living liver and kidney donors who were admitted for transplantation. None of the subjects suffered from diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hepatitis B virus infection, hepatitis C virus infection, heart dysfunction, liver dysfunction or metabolic syndrome. Results:: LSM failure rate was 2.7%. Among 12 liver donors (17.4%) with available liver histology, eight showed normal liver histology and four showed liver steatosis of <5% of the hepatocytes. The mean age of our study population was 38.9 ± 11.9 years (35 men and 34 women), with a mean LS value of 4.6 ± 0.5 kPa (range 3.3-5.6 kPa). LS values were not significantly different between men (4.6 ± 0.6 kPa) and women (4.5 ± 0.5 kPa, P=0.636), nor were they significantly different according to age (P=0.851). Using the fifth and 95th percentiles, we determined the normal range of LS values to be 3.9-5.3 kPa. Conclusions:: We identified the normal range of LS values and found that LS values were not significantly influenced by age and gender.