Background: Acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure (ACLF-HBV) is a clinically severe disease associated with major life-threatening complications including hepatic encephalopathy and hepatorenal syndrome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term prognostic predictability of the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD), MELD-based indices, and their dynamic changes in patients with ACLF-HBV, and to establish a new model for predicting the prognosis of ACLF-HBV.
Methods: A total of 172 patients with ACLF-HBV who stayed in the hospital for more than 2 weeks were retrospectively recruited. The predictive accuracy of MELD, MELD-based indices, and their dynamic change (D) were compared using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve method. The associations between mortality and patient characteristics were studied by univariate and multivariate analyses.
Results: The 3-month mortality was 43.6%. The largest concordance (c) statistic predicting 3-month mortality was the MELD score at the end of 2 weeks of admission (0.8), followed by the MELD: sodium ratio (MESO) (0.796) and integrated MELD (iMELD) (0.758) scores, DMELD (0.752), DMESO (0.729), and MELD plus sodium (MELD-Na) (0.728) scores. In multivariate Logistic regression analysis, the independent factors predicting prognosis were hepatic encephalopathy (OR = 3.466), serum creatinine, international normalized ratio (INR), and total bilirubin at the end of 2 weeks of admission (OR = 10.302, 6.063, 5.208, respectively), and cholinesterase on admission (OR = 0.255). This regression model had a greater prognostic value (c = 0.85, 95%CI 0.791 - 0.909) compared to the MELD score at the end of 2 weeks of admission (Z = 4.9851, P = 0.0256).
Conclusions: MELD score at the end of 2 weeks of admission is a useful predictor for 3-month mortality in ACLF-HBV patients. Hepatic encephalopathy, serum creatinine, international normalized ratio, and total bilirubin at the end of 2 weeks of admission and cholinesterase on admission are independent predictors of 3-month mortality.