Prevalence and Significance of Antinuclear Antibodies in Biopsy-Proven Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Table 2

Results of meta-analysis regarding the prevalence of antinuclear antibody positivity in different conditions of biopsy-proven NAFLD.

Subgroup	Study ()	Patient ()	Prevalence (95% CI)
By age					0.91
Children	3	462	23% (16%-30%)	72%
Adults	9	1798	24% (18%-29%)	86%
By sex†					<0.001
Female	6	622	35% (25%-46%)	87%
Male	6	1153	14% (11%-18%)	41%
By race^‡					0.58
Asian	3	642	28% (11%-44%)	94%
Non-Asian	7	1622	23% (18%-27%)	60%
By disease severity^§					0.002
NAFL	2	67	15% (6%-23%)	0%
NASH	5	574	31% (25%-37%)	49%
By geographic region^#					0.48
Eastern	3	642	28% (11%-44%)	94%
Western	8	1757	22% (17%-26%)	68%

NAFL: simple nonalcoholic fatty liver; NASH: nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; USA, the United States. ^† indicates that a total of 6 articles [11–14, 24, 29] reported the prevalence of antinuclear antibody positivity in men and women, and the other 6 articles were not reported, so a total of 6 articles were subgroup analyzed. ^‡ indicates that 3 [14, 24, 29] and 7 [12, 13, 23, 25, 27, 28, 31] articles reported the prevalence of antinuclear antibody positivity in Asian and non-Asian populations, respectively, and the other 2 articles reported the prevalence in mixed populations inclusive of participants from both Asia and non-Asia, so a total of 10 articles were subgroup analyzed. ^§ indicates that 2 [27, 31] and 5 [12, 27, 29–31] articles reported the prevalence of antinuclear antibody positivity in NAFL or NASH, respectively, and the other 7 articles were not reported, so a total of 5 articles were subgroup analyzed. ^# indicates that 3 [14, 24, 29] and 8 [11–13, 23, 25, 27, 28, 31] articles reported the prevalence of antinuclear antibody positivity in Eastern or Western countries, respectively, and the remaining study was conducted in both Eastern and Western countries, so a total of 11 articles were subgroup analyzed.