Purpose: Our study aimed to identify inflammatory biomarkers and develop a prediction model to stratify high-risk patients for hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC) recurrence after curative resection.
Patients and methods: A total of 583 eligible HBV-HCC patients with curative hepatectomy from Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital (GDPH) and Sun Ya-sen University Cancer Centre (SYSUCC) were enrolled in our study. Cox proportional hazards regression was utilized to evaluate potential risk factors for disease-free survival (RFS). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was utilized to assess the discrimination performance. Calibration plots and decision curve analyses (DCA) were used to evaluate the calibration of the nomogram and the net benefit, respectively.
Results: Based on the systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), aspartate aminotransferase to neutrophil ratio index (ANRI), China Liver Cancer (CNLC) stage and microvascular invasion, a satisfactory nomogram was developed. The AUC of our nomogram for predicting 1-, 2-, and 3-year RFS was 0.767, 0.726, and 0.708 in the training cohort and 0.761, 0.716, and 0.715 in the validation cohort, respectively. Furthermore, our model demonstrated excellent stratification as well as clinical applicability.
Conclusion: The novel nomogram showed a higher prognostic power for the RFS of HCC patients with curative hepatectomy than the CNLC, AJCC 8th edition and BCLC staging systems and may help oncologists identify high-risk HCC patients.
Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma; inflammatory biomarkers; nomogram; recurrence-free survival.
© 2022 Zheng et al.