Association of Wrist Circumference with Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease in the KADEM Cohort

Fahad Al-Ajmi¹Mohamed Abu-Farha¹Ahmed N Albatineh²Zahraa Ali¹Abdullah Al-Enezi¹Mohammed Alturki¹Rashed Alhammad³Retaj Alharbi¹Mohamed Shehab¹Muhammad Abdul-Ghani⁴Jehad Ahmed Abubaker^1*Fahd Al Mulla^1*

• ¹Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait City, Kuwait
• ²College of Health, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States
• ³Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait
• ⁴The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States

circumference and other covariates in predicting high CAP scores, with the area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity reported.The cohort included 184 (41.5%) normal, 77 (17.4%) S1, 81 (18.3%) S2, and 101 (22.8%) S3 participants. Wrist circumference was significantly different across groups: 16 cm for normal, 17 cm for S1 and S2, and 17.2 cm for S3 (p-value < 0.001). A strong correlation between wrist circumference and MAFLD was found (r = 0.328, p-value < 0.001). Wrist circumference was positively correlated with triglycerides (TG), ALT, and AST levels, and negatively with HDL (p-value < 0.05). Adjusted analysis showed that gender, wrist circumference, ALT, and TG were significantly associated with high CAP scores. A multiple logistic regression model including these variables discriminated 76.3% of the subjects, with 69.4% sensitivity and 73.4% specificity.Wrist circumference is a potential non-invasive marker for identifying individuals at high risk of MAFLD, offering a cost-effective screening tool for early detection. Further research is needed to confirm its clinical utility.