Comparison of the Diagnostic Value Between Triglyceride-Glucose Index and Triglyceride-to-High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Ratio in MAFLD Patients: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background The triglyceride and glucose index (TyG) and triglyceride-to-high density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-C) were found to be substitute markers of insulin resistance (IR). We aimed to compare the efficacy of the two indicators in the diagnosis of Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD), which was rarely covered in the literature, and to construct a novel disease diagnosis model.Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out in West China Hospital of Sichuan University and 229 people (97 MAFLD and 132 Non-MAFLD) were included. Biochemical indexes were collected and analyzed by logistic regression to screen out indicators that expressed differently in MAFLD patients and healthy controls and incorporate them into a diagnostic model. MAFLD was diagnosed by Ultrasound.Results After adjusting for age, gender and BMI, Serum ALT, AST, AST/ALT (A/A), FPG, Cys-C, URIC, TG, HDL-C, ALP, GGT, nonHDL-C, LDL-C/HDL-C, nonHDL-C/HDL-C, TG/HDL-C, TC/HDL-C, TyG and TyG-BMI were risk factors of MAFLD through binary logistics regression analysis. The odds ratio of TG/HDL-C and TyG were 5.387 (95%CI: 2.986-9,718) and 107.945 (95% CI: 25.824-451.222). In identifying MAFLD, TyG, TG/HDL-C and TG were found to be the most vital indexes by the random forest method and the area under the curve (AUC) of them are all greater than 0.9 respectively. In addition, the combination of gender, BMI, ALT, TG, HDL-C, TyG and TyG-BMI had a great diagnostic efficiency for MAFLD.Conclusions TyG and TG/HDL-C were potential risk factors for MAFLD and the former made a better performance in diagnosing MAFLD. The combination of gender, BMI, ALT, TG, HDL-C, TyG and TyG-BMI improved the diagnostic capability of MAFLD.