NONINVASIVE DIAGNOSIS OF LIVER-CIRRHOSIS - A COMPARISON BETWEEN 4 DISCRIMINANT FUNCTIONS

Citation
G. Corrao et al., NONINVASIVE DIAGNOSIS OF LIVER-CIRRHOSIS - A COMPARISON BETWEEN 4 DISCRIMINANT FUNCTIONS, Revue d'epidemiologie et de sante publique, 41(2), 1993, pp. 123-130
Citations number
NO
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
ISSN journal
0398-7620
Volume
41
Issue
2
Year of publication
1993
Pages
123 - 130
Database
ISI
SICI code
0398-7620(1993)41:2<123:NDOL-A>2.0.ZU;2-0
Abstract
We assessed the performance of 4 methods of discriminant analysis usin g as independent variables the age and 16 serum tests, for correctly i dentifying patients with liver cirrhosis among hospitalized patients a ffected by chronic liver disease without signs of liver failure; 290 p atients entered this study: on the basis of laparoscopy with or withou t liver biopsy, 152 patients had a diagnosis of liver cirrhosis and 13 8 were classified as chronic hepatitic patients. Due to the non-multin ormal distribution of the variables used and to the unequality of the variance-covariance matrices, we compared the following 4 methods: lin ear discriminant function, quadratic discriminant function, non-parame tric discriminant function and logistic regression. The Receiver Opera ting Characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to compare diagnostic abil ity of the assessed methods: the quadratic discriminant function was t he best performing method. The predictive ability of this function was compared to that reported for percutaneous liver biopsy, showing that this simple statistical method using age and biochemical tests can ef ficiently identify liver cirrhosis in the setting of chronic liver dis ease, reducing the need for invasive diagnostic procedures.