A second major finding of this study is a strong link between liver CD34 staining and liver fibrosis – and to a lesser extent liver inflammation – observed in 249 patients covering the whole MASLD spectrum (except for MASH cirrhosis), consistent with the associations between liver CD34 staining and FIB-4 (a marker of liver fibrosis), serum AST, ALT, and cytokeratin 18 M65 (a marker of cell death) concentrations observed in the same patients. Here, KRT18 is linked to Hepatic fibrosis.