Prognostic assessment using a new substaging system for Barcelona clinic liver cancer stage C hepatocellular carcinoma: A nationwide study.

AIM & BACKGROUND: Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Barcelona clinic liver cancer [BCLC] stage C) needs subclassification to more accurately predict survival. This study aims to establish a substaging system of BCLC stage C HCC patients for accurate prognosis. METHODS: Data from 564 patients with newly diagnosed BCLC stage C HCC from three tertiary-care hospitals affiliated with the Korea University (training set) were assessed retrospectively. Variables affecting overall survival (OS) were analysed, and patients were substaged according to the number of prognostic factors they fulfilled. The substaging system was validated using a nationwide database from the Korean Liver Cancer Association (validation set; n = 742). RESULTS: In the training set, tumour factors such as tumour burden ≥10 cm, major portal vein invasion and distant metastasis, as well as underlying liver function, were independently associated with OS. BCLC stage C was classified into four substages (C1-4) according to the number of prognostic factors. Substages C1, C2, C3 and C4 showed a median OS of 17.50 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 8.57-26.43), 10.13 months (95% CI, 8.17-12.09), 4.20 months (95% CI, 3.42-4.98), and 2.90 months (95% CI, 2.34-3.46) respectively (P < 0.05). This substaging system also had good discriminative ability in predicting survival in the validation set. In addition, it was considered that the BCLC substaging is better than Hong Kong liver cancer substaging in predicting the OS for patients with advanced HCC. CONCLUSION: Our substaging for BCLC stage C might help predict patients' prognosis better.

Assessment and prediction of acute kidney injury in patients with decompensated cirrhosis with serum cystatin C and urine N-acetyl-ß-D-glucosaminidase.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: For appropriate management of acute kidney injury (AKI) in cirrhotic patients, accurate differentiation of the types of AKI, prerenal azotemia (PRA), hepatorenal syndrome (HRS), and acute tubular necrosis (ATN) is very important. Urine N-acetyl-ß-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) has been proposed as a good tubular injury marker in many studies, but its efficacy in cirrhosis is unclear. This study was performed to evaluate the usefulness of urine NAG in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. METHODS: In 114 hospitalized patients with decompensated cirrhosis, we assessed serum creatinine, cystatin C, and urine NAG levels as markers for AKI differentiation and development and patient mortality. RESULTS: Thirty patients diagnosed with AKI at baseline had significantly higher serum creatinine and cystatin C levels, urine NAG levels, and Child-Pugh scores than those without AKI. Only urine NAG levels were significantly higher in patients with ATN than those with PRA or HRS (116.1 ± 46.8 U/g vs 39.4 ± 20.2 or 54.0 ± 19.2 U/g urinary creatinine, all P < 0.05). During a median follow up of 6.1 months, AKI developed in 17 of 84 patients: PRA in nine, HRS in six, and ATN in three. Higher serum cystatin C and urine NAG levels were independent predictors of AKI development in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. Survival was significantly associated with low serum cystatin C and urine NAG levels. CONCLUSION: Serum cystatin C and urine NAG levels are useful to differentiate types of AKI and are strong predictors for AKI development and mortality in patients with decompensated cirrhosis.

Comparison of the methods for tumor response assessment in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing transarterial chemoembolization.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Recently, new methods, including the concept of viable enhancing tumor such as EASL and mRECIST, have been proposed for substitution of the conventional WHO and RECIST criteria in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). Herein, we evaluated the differences of four methods and compared the association of these methods with the prognosis of HCC patients undergoing TACE. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 114 consecutive newly diagnosed HCC patients who underwent TACE as initial treatment. We evaluated the intermethod agreement (κ values) between the methods and compared their association with the prognosis of HCC patients. RESULTS: The κ values for EASL vs. WHO, EASL vs. RECIST, mRECIST vs. WHO, and mRECIST vs. RECIST were low, of 0.102, 0.088, 0.112, and 0.122, respectively. However, good correlations were observed for WHO vs. RECIST and EASL vs. mRECIST (κ=0.883, κ=0.759, respectively p<0.001). The median OS was 32.3 months. Hazard ratios (HR) for survival in responders compared with non-responders were 0.21 (95% CI; 0.12-0.37, p<0.001) for EASL and 0.27 (95% CI; 0.15-0.48, p<0.001) for mRECIST. The mean survival of responders was significantly longer than that of non-responders in both EASL (40.8 vs. 16.9 months, p<0.001) and mRECIST (41.1 vs. 20.7 months, p<0.001). In multivariate analysis, EASL response (HR 0.21, 95% CI 0.11-0.40, p<0.001) and mRECIST response (HR; 0.31, 95% CI, 0.17-0.59, p<0.001) were independently associated with survival. CONCLUSIONS: The response assessment by EASL and mRECIST could reliably predict the survival of HCC patients undergoing TACE and could be applicable in practice in preference to the conventional WHO and RECIST criteria.