Incorporating albumin-bilirubin grade and up-to-seven criteria to predict outcomes of patients with intermediate stage hepatocellular carcinoma after transarterial (chemo)embolization

Background/Purpose: This study is to use albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) grade and up-to-7 (UT7) criteria to assess outcomes of patients with intermediate stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after transarterial (chemo)embolization (TA(C)E). Methods: Between January 2012 and January 2019, newly diagnosed intermediate HCC patients underwent TA(C)E were enrolled and analyzed. The demographics, clinical characteristics and survival were obtained from medical chart reviews. Results: A total of 359 patients were enrolled and 30.4% of them were within UT7 criteria (UT7 (−)). There were 36.5%, 59.3%, and 4.2% of the patients with ALBI grade I, II, and III, respectively. Beyond UT7 (UT7 (+)) and ALBI grade II/III were associated with overall mortality in multivariate analysis. Based on ALBI grade I/II/III and UT7 −/+, patients were classified into six groups as ALBI grade I plus UT7 (−), II plus UT7 (−), III plus UT7 (−), I plus UT7 (+), II plus UT7 (+), and III plus UT7(+). Distributions of median survival were 47.5, 32.9, 15, 34.3, 16.7 and 14.3 months, respectively. Patients with statistically insignificant survivals were further combined. Patients with ALBI grade I plus UT7 (−) were reclassified as ALBI-U class I, whereas ALBI grade II plus UT7 (−) and I plus UT7 (+) were ALBI-U class II, and the others were ALBI-U class III. There were 8.4%, 48.7%, and 42.9% of patients in ALBI-U class I, II, and III, respectively. The 5-year survival rate was 48.8%, 22.5%, and 13.7% in ALBI-U class I, II, and III, respectively (p < 0.01). Conclusion: ALBI-U classification was useful in predicting outcomes of patient with intermediate stage HCC after TA(C)E.