Background: The Child-Turcotte-Pugh score (CTP) is the standard tool for hepatic reserve assessment in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Recently, we reported that integrating plasma insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) level into the CTP score was associated with better patient risk stratification in two U.S. independent cohorts. Our current study aimed to validate the IGF-CTP score in patients who have different demographics and risk factors.
Patients and methods: We prospectively recruited 100 Egyptian patients and calculated their IGF-CTP score compared to CTP score. C-index was used to compare the prognostic significance of the two scoring systems. Finally, we compared our results with our U.S. cohorts published data.
Results: IGF-CTP score showed significant better patient stratification compared to CTP score in the international validation cohort. Among CTP class A patients, who usually considered for active treatment and clinical trial enrollment, 32.5% were reclassified as IGF-CTP class B with significantly shorter OS than patients reclassified as class A with hazard ratio [HR] = 6.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.18 -17.37.
Conclusions: IGF-CTP score showed significantly better patient stratification and survival prediction not only in the U.S. population but also in international validation population, who had different demographics and HCC risk factors.
Keywords: Child-Pugh; IGF-1; hepatocellular carcinoma; liver reserve; validation.