Background and aim: This study aims to validate the efficacy of the conventional non-invasive score in predicting significant fibrosis in metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) and to develop a non-invasive prediction model for MAFLD.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 7701 participants with MAFLD from August 2018 to December 2023. All participants were divided into a training cohort and a validation cohort. The study compared different subgroups' demographic, anthropometric, and laboratory examination indicators and conducted logistic regression analysis to assess the correlation between independent variables and liver fibrosis. Nomograms were created using the logistic regression model. The predictive values of noninvasive models and nomograms were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and decision curve analysis (DCA).
Results: Four nomograms were developed for the quantitative analysis of significant liver fibrosis risk based on the multivariate logistic regression analysis results. The nomogram's area under ROC curves (AUC) was 0.710, 0.714, 0.748, and 0.715 in overall MAFLD, OW-MAFLD, Lean-MAFLD, and T2DM-MAFLD, respectively. The nomogram had a higher AUC in all MAFLD participants and OW-MAFLD than the other non-invasive scores. The DCA curve showed that the net benefit of each nomogram was higher than that of APRI and FIB-4. In the validation cohort, the AUCs of the nomograms were 0.722, 0.750, 0.719, and 0.705, respectively.
Conclusion: APRI, FIB-4, and NFS performed poorly predicting significant fibrosis in patients with MAFLD. The new model demonstrated improved diagnostic accuracy and clinical applicability in identifying significant fibrosis in MAFLD.
Keywords: Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease; diagnostics; liver fibrosis; nomogram; non-invasive prediction model.