Table 1.

Evidence in favor of the good prognosis of NAFL patients.

Paired Liver Biopsy	# of Patients	Endpoints	Type of Study	Observations	Reference #
yes	40	natural history	retrospective	no progression to cirrhosis or liver-related complications; low number of patients	[24]
no	132	cirrhosis outcome, overall mortality, liver-related mortality	retrospective	poor outcome only in patients with ballooning, Mallory hyaline or fibrosis	[12]
no	209	liver-related mortality	retrospective	only fibrosis as independent factor of liver-related mortality	[25]
no	646	liver-related mortality, overall survival	retrospective	only fibrosis associated with liver-related mortality and overall survival	[26]
yes	221	natural history of fibrosis progression; predictors of progression to F3 fibrosis	retrospective systematic review	age and inflammation are predictors of progression to advanced fibrosis	[27]
Yes (n = 60)	129	survival and cause of death	retrospective	survival is lower in NASH but not in simple steatosis; low number of patients; heterogeneity of patient population;	[28]
no	170 NAFLD 246 ALD	risk of cirrhosis development; risk of death	retrospective	patients with simple steatosis have similar survival to Danish population	[29]
no	547	potential risk factors (index biopsy) for survival and cirrhosis development	retrospective	long-term follow-up study of ref. #31	[30]
No	619	long-term prognostic relevance of histologic features	retrospective	only fibrosis showed decreased overall survival, low number of patients with NASH and without fibrosis	[13]

Abbreviations: NAFLD, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; ALD, alcoholic liver disease.