• Yuhao He, Yujia Yan, and Sunfu Zhang.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Chengdu Third People's Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 610031.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Jan 29; 100 (4): e23636e23636.

BackgroundEarly stage of cirrhosis is of great value in the diagnosis and management in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD). Recent studies have shown that quantitative liver surface nodularity (LSN) score based on imaging techniques can be used to predict the early cirrhosis stage noninvasively, with varied diagnostic accuracy and limited sample size. Hence, this study will evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of LSN in the prediction of early cirrhosis.MethodsWe will conduct a comprehensive search in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Chinese biomedical databases to identify eligible studies. The literature screening, data extraction, data analysis, and quality assessment will then be carried out. The summary receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) and pooled sensitivity, specificity will be calculated to summarize the diagnostic performance of LSN using a random-effect model. A meta-regression analysis will be performed to investigate the underlying cause of the heterogeneity.ResultsThis study will evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of LSN score in the identification of early cirrhosis, which may further determine whether this method can be used as an alternative in the assessment of CLD patients.ConclusionsThis study will help to determine the diagnostic accuracy and summarize the recent evidence on this issue.Study RegistrationINPLASY2020100096.Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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