Author information
- 1Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
- 2Weill Cornell Medical College.
- 3Einstein Healthcare Network.
- 4David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Abstract
Purpose: The albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) grade has been established as an improved predictor of survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with conventional transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) and yttrium-90 radioembolization. We investigate the viability of ALBI grade in prognosticating HCC patients treated with drug-eluting embolic (DEE)-TACE.
Materials and methods: An IRB-approved, single-center retrospective review was performed to compare the efficacy of ALBI grade and Child-Pugh (CP) classification in predicting survival of HCC patients receiving DEE-TACE. 303 patients with HCC were identified who had received DEE-TACE without concomitant locoregional therapy within 30 days. Survival analysis was performed using Kaplan-Meier (KM) methods and censored for curative therapy. Survival curves were stratified based on ALBI grade, CP class, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status and presence of ascites. Discriminatory ability of survival curves was calculated by C-Index.
Results: Kaplan-Meier survival curves stratified by ALBI grade produced distinct, non-overlapping curves (p < 0.001), showing greater discriminatory ability compared to CP class (C index = 0.568, 0.545, respectively). Substratification of BCLC by ALBI grade yielded greater discriminatory ability compared to substratification by CP class (C index = 0.573, 0.565, respectively). For BCLC B patients, substratification by ALBI grade yielded distinct curves while substratification by CP class did not (p = 0.011, 0.379, respectively).
Conclusion: ALBI grade shows improved discriminatory ability versus CP class in differentiating overall survival among patients with HCC receiving DEE-TACE. Furthermore, ALBI grade was efficacious in substratifying survival among CP A patients, and substratified BCLC B patients whereas CP class did not.