Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Is Associated with Doubled Risk for Severe Liver Disease

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and considered a major risk factor for clinically significant liver disease. Therefore, routine screening for NAFLD in this population has been recommended. Because screening would be resource-intensive, identifying those at highest risk would assist in targeting screening initiatives.

Using data from the Swedish National Diabetes Register, researchers compared the incidence of severe liver disease (defined as development of cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC], liver failure, or liver-related death) in over 400,000 individuals with T2DM and over 2 million individuals without T2DM, matched on age, sex, and county of residence (controls…