{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,27]],"date-time":"2026-06-27T04:02:07Z","timestamp":1782532927102,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,24]],"date-time":"2025-01-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1737676800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n<jats:title>Background &amp; aims<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Chronic liver diseases pose a serious public health issue. Identifying patients at risk for advanced liver fibrosis is crucial for early intervention. The Fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4), a simple non-invasive test, classifies patients into three risk groups for advanced fibrosis. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of patients at risk for advanced hepatic fibrosis at a Swiss tertiary care hospital by calculating the FIB-4 score in routine blood analysis.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n<jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>A retrospective study was conducted using data from 36,360 patients who visited outpatient clinics at eight main clinics of the University Hospital Bern in Switzerland. The data collection period ran from January 1st to December 31st, 2022. Patients attending the hepatology outpatient clinic were excluded. We then calculated the overall and clinic-specific prevalence of patients falling into the high risk category for advanced fibrosis according to FIB-4.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n<jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Among the 36,360 patients, 26,245 (72.2%) had a low risk of advanced fibrosis (FIB-4 &lt;1.3), whereas 3913 (10.8%) and 2597 (7.1%) patients were flagged to have a high risk of advanced fibrosis (FIB-4 &gt;2.67 and FIB-4 &gt;3.25 respectively). Geriatrics and Cardiology had the highest proportions of patients at risk for advanced fibrosis over all clinics.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n<jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>This study demonstrates a high prevalence of high FIB-4 score in a Swiss tertiary care hospital. The implementation of the automatically generated FIB-4 score in daily practice, not only in primary care, but also within tertiary care hospitals, could be crucial for early identification of outpatients at high risk of advanced liver fibrosis requiring further hepatological investigations.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0317629","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,24]],"date-time":"2025-01-24T18:28:27Z","timestamp":1737743307000},"page":"e0317629","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Estimating the prevalence of adults at risk for advanced hepatic fibrosis using FIB-4 in a Swiss tertiary care hospital"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7371-8641","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Petra","family":"Strajhar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Annalisa","family":"Berzigotti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1323-3116","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Henning","family":"Nilius","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4319-2367","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Michael","family":"Nagler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jean-Fran\u00e7ois","family":"Dufour","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0317629.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2809","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cgh.2021.12.002","article-title":"2019 Global NAFLD Prevalence: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis","volume":"20","author":"MH Le","year":"2022","journal-title":"Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2123","DOI":"10.1136\/gutjnl-2021-326874","article-title":"Current therapies and new developments in NASH","volume":"71","author":"J-F Dufour","year":"2022","journal-title":"Gut"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.12968\/hmed.2019.0308","article-title":"Detecting chronic liver disease: are liver function tests the solution?","volume":"81","author":"P Thiagarajan","year":"2020","journal-title":"Br J Hosp Med"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref004","volume-title":"StatPearls","author":"A Sharma","year":"2022"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37","DOI":"10.1016\/j.mam.2018.09.002","article-title":"Liver fibrosis: Pathophysiology, pathogenetic targets and clinical issues","volume":"65","author":"M Parola","year":"2019","journal-title":"Mol Aspects Med"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"875","DOI":"10.3390\/cells9040875","article-title":"Liver Fibrosis: Mechanistic Concepts and Therapeutic Perspectives","volume":"9","author":"N Roehlen","year":"2020","journal-title":"Cells"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1388","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jhep.2015.11.004","article-title":"EASL\u2013EASD\u2013EASO Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease","volume":"64","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Hepatology"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref008","first-page":"143","article-title":"FIB-4 First in the Diagnostic Algorithm of Metabolic-Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease in the Era of the Global Metabodemic","volume":"11","author":"Y Sumida","year":"2021","journal-title":"Life (Basel)"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1265","DOI":"10.1136\/gut.2010.216077","article-title":"Simple non-invasive fibrosis scoring systems can reliably exclude advanced fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease","volume":"59","author":"S McPherson","year":"2010","journal-title":"Gut"},{"key":"pone.0317629.ref010","unstructured":"Overview | Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): assessment and management | Guidance | NICE. 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