ArticleCureus2025
Utility and Comparative Efficacy of Lok Score, Splenic Stiffness, EVendo Score, and Liaoning Score in Predicting Esophageal Varices in the Pakistani Population.
Article in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background Esophageal varices (EV) are a critical complication of portal hypertension in cirrhotic patients, with variceal bleeding contributing significantly to morbidity and mortality. Endoscopy remains the gold standard for diagnosis, but its invasive nature and limited availability in low-resource settings necessitate the validation of non-invasive predictive tools. This study aims to compare the diagnostic performance of four non-invasive models, Lok score, splenic stiffness (SS), EVendo score, and Liaoning score, for predicting EV in Pakistani patients with chronic liver disease (CLD). Methods A cross-sectional observational study was conducted at the Department of Hepatogastroenterology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), Karachi, from January to December 2024. A total of 272 cirrhotic patients undergoing screening endoscopy were enrolled. Clinical, laboratory, and radiological data were collected to compute the Lok, EVendo, and Liaoning scores. Splenic stiffness was measured using transient elastography. The presence of EV was confirmed via upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess diagnostic accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic {AUROC}), and multivariate regression identified independent predictors of high-risk varices (HRV). Results EV were present in 72.8% of patients, with high-risk varices in 31.3%. All four scores were significantly elevated in patients with EV. Splenic stiffness demonstrated the highest AUROC (0.858), followed by Lok score (0.804), EVendo score (0.76), and Liaoning score (0.755). EVendo score showed the highest diagnostic accuracy (81.56%) and, along with SS, was an independent predictor of HRV. Conclusion Splenic stiffness and EVendo score are reliable non-invasive predictors of esophageal varices and high-risk varices in the Pakistani cirrhotic population. However, further multicentered studies are required to validate our results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.