Development, External Validation, and Comparative Assessment of a New Diagnostic Score for Hepatic Steatosis

Abstract

We compared the ability of the FLI, HSI, and our own scoring system to determine the risk of hepatic steatosis using two population-based data sets (one for the development of our own system and one for validation). In the development and independent replication data set, all three indices discriminated well between patients with and without hepatic steatosis, but the predicted risks did not match well with the observed risks, when applied to external data. Scoring systems for fatty liver disease could depend on methodological standardization of ultrasound diagnosis and laboratory measurements.