Albumin-bilirubin grade as an alternative to Child-Pugh class for evaluating liver function within staging systems for hepatocellular carcinoma.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Multiple staging systems for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been proposed, where Child-Pugh class (CP) is utilized to assess liver function. However, several inherent limitations occur in CP. We investigated whether replacement of CP by model for end-stage liver disease grade (MELD) or albumin-bilirubin grade (ALBI) in currently used HCC staging systems could achieve better prediction performance.

Methods

568 patients first diagnosed with HCC were retrospectively analyzed. We compared each original and modified systems by calculating their Harrell's concordance index (C-index), Wald χ², and Corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc) as well as plotting decision curves and calibration curves by R version 4.3.1.

Results

The study identified

SUBMITTER: Guan MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11936848 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature