NEW DELHI– A simple blood test developed by researchers in Sweden could help identify people at risk of developing severe liver disease, including cirrhosis and cancer, up to a decade before symptoms appear.
The study, published in The BMJ and led by scientists at Karolinska Institutet, found that the test — called the CORE model — can reliably estimate an individual’s likelihood of developing serious liver disease using routine health data.
“These are diseases that are growing increasingly common and that have a poor prognosis if detected late,” said Rickard Strandberg, a researcher at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Medicine who helped develop the test. “Our method can predict the risk of severe liver disease within 10 years and is based on three simple routine blood tests.”
The CORE model combines five factors: age, sex, and blood levels of three enzymes commonly checked during routine exams — AST, ALT, and GGT. Using advanced statistical methods, the model was trained on health data from more than 480,000 people in Stockholm who were followed for up to 30 years after initial checkups conducted between 1985 and 1996.
Principal investigator Hannes Hagström, adjunct professor at Karolinska Institutet, called the findings a step toward early screening in primary care. “Drug treatments are available for people at high risk of developing cirrhosis or liver cancer. Having a tool like this test could allow us to intervene much earlier,” he said.
The test showed strong predictive power, correctly distinguishing between individuals who did or did not develop severe liver disease in 88 percent of cases, according to the study.
If adopted in clinics, researchers believe the test could accelerate detection and help prevent thousands of cases of advanced liver disease worldwide. (Source: IANS)
