Abstract
Background: Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a new nomenclature for non-alcoholic fatty liver. Fatty liver associated with metabolic dysfunction is increasing with obesity and has become a serious socioeconomic problem. Non-invasive testing to confirm MAFLD, such as the fatty liver index (FLI), can be used as an alternative method for diagnosing steatosis when imaging modalities are not available. To date, few studies have examined the effectiveness and validity of FLI for diagnosing MAFLD. Therefore, this study analyzed the effectiveness and validity of FLI for diagnosing MAFLD.Methods: The medical records of men and women aged 19 years or older who underwent abdominal computed tomography (CT) examination at the University Hospital Health Promotion Center from March 2012 to October 2019 were reviewed retrospectively. A comparative analysis between non-continuous variables was performed using the chi-squared test. The area under receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve was used to verify the effectiveness of FLI as a predictive index for MAFLD. Results: Analysis of the association between MAFLD and abdominal CT revealed that the sensitivity and specificity of FLI for diagnosing MAFLD were 0.712 and 0.713, respectively. The AUROC of FLI for the prediction of MAFLD was 0.776.Conclusion: Our study verified the accuracy of FLI for predicting MAFLD using CT. Additionally, FLI can be used as a simple and cost-effective tool for screening MAFLD in clinical settings
Metabolic-associated Fatty Liver Disease as Assessed by the Fatty Liver Index Among Migrant and Non-migrant Ghanaian Populations
