title: Fatty liver disease index: a simple screening tool to facilitate diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in the Chinese population.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A simple screening tool is needed as an aid to optimize management of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The purpose of this study was to design a simple index that could be used to predict the presence of NAFLD.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional case-control study design was used for this study with 6,926 subjects who had received health assessments.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multivariate analysis indicated that body mass index (BMI), triglyceride (TG), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) to aspartate aminotransferase (AST) ratio (ALT/AST ratio), and hyperglycemia (HG) were independent risk factors for NAFLD. These variables were used to construct a fatty liver disease (FLD) index: FLD index = BMI + TG + 3 × (ALT/AST ratio) + 2 × HG (presence of HG, HG = 1; absence of HG, HG = 0). The FLD index had an area under the receiver-operating characteristic (AUROC) curve of 0.819 in the training set and 0.817 in the validation set. Values of the FLD index <28.0 or >37.0 excluded the possibility of NAFLD with sensitivity of 94.9 % or detected NAFLD with specificity of 96.0 %, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The FLD index is a simple, efficient NAFLD screening tool for the Chinese population that may be used to select people for further analysis and/or treatment, and/or for lifestyle modification.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, School of Military Preventive Medicine, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, 710032, Shaanxi, China, shifuyan@126.com.
authors.forename: Shi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fuyan
authors.forename: Leng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.forename: Cao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wenjun
authors.forename: Tan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhijun
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weijing
authors.forename: Wang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Suzhen
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yongyong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D065626:Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
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