Development of a Digestive Cancer Risk Score Based on Nutritional Predictors: A Risk Prediction Model in the Golestan Cohort Study

This study aimed to develop a non-laboratory simple and useful scoring system to predict risk of incident digestive cancers within the healthcare and clinical framework in Iranian population. The present study was conducted on the collected data from the Golestan Cohort Study. A total of 49,173 participants, aged 37-80 years, were recruited from Gonbad City and 326 rural villages and were followed from 2004 to 2021 in Iran. A non-laboratory model for prediction of the 15-year risk of digestive cancers by means of dietary predictors and formulating a simple and useful scoring system in Iranian population was done in this study. A total of 43550 participants (25249 women and 18301 men) were included in the final analysis. The model's discrimination and calibration were assessed by concordance statistic (C-statistic) and calibration plot, respectively. The model had an acceptable discrimination in both derivation (C-statistic: 0.76) and validation (C-statistic: 0.70) samples (<i>p</i> < 0.001). Also, the calibration of model in derivation and validation datasets was 0.88 and 0.91, respectively. As an assessment tool, the established simple and practical nutritional risk score is suitable for motivating at-risk individuals to change lifestyles and dietary patterns to reduce future risks and prevent health problems.