CHI3L1 and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: However, in 95 patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, Malik et al. observed that YKL-40 performed relatively poorly as marker of liver inflammation or fibrosis [89]; moreover, in 52 children with biopsy-verified NAFLD, Lebensztejn and coworkers did not find a correlation between YKL-40 and fibrosis stage [90].