Construction of a hepatocellular carcinoma high-risk population rating scale and independent predictors' assessment

Background: With increasing mortality and incidence, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has become a major public health problem. The early diagnosis of HCC can improve its prognosis. The aim of this study was to identify potential risk factors related to HCC development and to establish a high -risk population rating scale. Methods: A total of 853 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) were enrolled in this study, including 403 patients with HCC as the case group and others as the control group. Their demographic and clinical characteristics were compared and the independent risk factors for HCC were assessed. Then, the optimal cutoff levels of these factors were analyzed by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method. A high -risk population rating scale was constructed based on the factors and then evaluated in the modeling population. Results: The factors that presented statistically significant differences between the two groups included age, smoking, alcohol abuse, body mass index, triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, fasting plasma glucose, creatinine and uric acid. The ROC curve showed that the cutoff score for the HCC high risk population was 5 (AUC=0.74, P<0.001) and the Hosmer-Lemeshow analysis showed that the fitting effect of this rating scale was good (P = 0.294). Conclusions: The integration of these factors can contribute to a prognostic score for the risk of HCC development, which offered certain clinical practicability.