Laboratory variables-based artificial neural network models for predicting fatty liver disease: A retrospective study

Background The efficacy of artificial neural network (ANN) models employing laboratory variables for predicting fatty liver disease (FLD) remains inadequately established. The study aimed to develop ANN models to precisely predict FLD.Methods Of 12,058 participants undergoing the initial FLD screening, 7,990 eligible participants were included. A total of 6,309 participants were divided randomly into the training (4,415 participants, 70%) and validation (1,894 participants, 30%) sets for developing prediction models. The performance of ANNs was additionally tested in the testing set (1,681 participants). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was employed to assess the models' performance.Results The 18-variable, 11-variable, 3-variable, and 2-variable models each achieved robust FLD prediction performance, with AUROCs over 0.92, 0.91, and 0.89 in the training, validation, and testing, respectively. Although slightly inferior to the other three models in performance (AUROC ranges: 0.89-0.92 vs 0.91-0.95), the 2-variable model showed 80.3% accuracy and 89.7% positive predictive value in the testing. Incorporating age and gender increased the AUROCs of the resulting 20-variable, 13-variable, 5-variable, and 4-variable models each to over 0.93, 0.92, and 0.91 in the training, validation, and testing, respectively.Conclusions Implementation of the ANN models could effectively predict FLD, with enhanced predictive performance via the inclusion of age and gender.