Abstract
A predictive column chart was developed to assess the risk of primary liver cancer (PLC) in hepatitis B patients. Data from 107 PLC patients and 107 controls were used as the training set, with 92 patients as the validation set. An additional 446 patients from other hospitals, including 15 with PLC, formed the external validation group. Multivariate logistic regression identified gender, BMI, alcohol consumption, diabetes, family history of liver cancer, cirrhosis, and HBV DNA load as independent risk factors. The model showed strong discrimination with AUCs of 0.882 and 0.859 in the training and validation sets, respectively, and good calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow χ² = 2.648, P = 0.954; χ² = 4.117, P = 0.846). Decision curve analysis (DCA) confirmed clinical benefit within a risk threshold of 0.07-0.95. In the external validation group, the model maintained discrimination (AUC = 0.863) and calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow χ² = 7.999, P = 0.434), with DCA showing net benefit across 0.14-0.95. These results indicate the column chart is a reliable tool for PLC risk prediction in hepatitis B patients.