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.