Better methods needed for predicting risk of liver disease:Study

Washington: Blood samples are considered the best way to identify people with severe liver conditions but researchers now suggest that a better method is needed for diagnosing liver diseases.
Fatty liver is a common condition, associated primarily with type 2 diabetes and obesity, in which fat accumulates in the liver. Some people with fatty liver will develop cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer, but it is hard to identify these individuals in time.
Different scoring systems are currently used where the risk of liver disease is estimated by using clinical parameters and blood tests, enabling doctors to identify people with advanced liver fibrosis.
However, it is unclear how good these systems are at predicting the risk of severe liver disease in the general population.
The researchers behind the present study sourced the AMORIS cohort, which contains blood sample data from over 800,000 people who had been examined during health checkups and in primary care in Stockholm between 1985 and 1996.
Scores from various blood-based scoring systems were cross-referenced with national registries to identify people who developed severe liver disease up to 27 years later.