Search

Biomarkers for predicting the treatment efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-based therapy in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC) are crucial. Previous studies demonstrated that C-reactive protein and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in immunotherapy (CRAFITY) score at baseline predicted treatment outcomes and that patients with uHCC with AFP response, defined as > 15% decline in AFP level within the initial 3 months of ICI-based therapy, had favorable outcomes when receiving ICI-based therapy. However, whether the combination of CRAFITY score and AFP response could be used to predict treatment efficacy of programmed death-1 (PD-1) blockade-based therapy in uHCC patients remains unclear. We retrospectively enrolled 110 consecutive uHCC patients from May 2017 to March 2022. The median ICI treatment duration was 2.85 (1.67-6.63) months, and 87 patients received combination therapies. The objective response and disease control rates were 21.8% and 46.4%, respectively. The duration of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) was 2.87 (2.16-3.58) months and 8.20 (4.23-12.17) months, respectively. We categorized patients into three groups based on CRAFITY score (2 vs 0/1) and AFP response: patients with a CRAFITY score of 0/1 and AFP response (Group 1), those with a CRAFITY score of 2 and no AFP response (group 3), and those who did not belong to Group 1 and 3 (i.e., Group 2). The combination of CRAFITY score and AFP response could predict disease control and could predict PFS compared with CRAFITY score or AFP response alone. The combination of CRAFITY score and AFP response was an independent predictor of OS (Group 2 vs Group 1, HR: 4.513, 95% CI 1.990-10.234; Group 3 vs Group 1, HR: 3.551, 95% CI 1.544-8.168). Our findings indicated that the combination of CRAFITY score and AFP response could predict disease control, PFS, and OS in uHCC patients receiving PD-1 blockade-based immunotherapy.

The feasibility and performance of predicting hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using a combined albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) and fibrosis-4 (FIB-4)-based model remain unclear in patients with compensated cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) receiving long-term nucleos(t)ide analog (NA) therapy. We enrolled 1158 NA-naïve patients with compensated cirrhosis and CHB treated with entecavir or tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. The patients’ baseline characteristics, hepatic reserve, and fibrosis indices were analyzed. The combination of ALBI and FIB-4 was used to develop a prediction model of HCC. In this cohort, the cumulative incidence rates of HCC at 3, 5, and 10 years were 8.1%, 13.2%, and 24.1%, respectively. The combination of ALBI and FIB-4, Diabetes mellitus, and Alpha-fetoprotein (AFDA) were independent risk factors for HCC. The combined ALBI and FIB-4-based prediction model (i.e., AFDA) stratified the cumulative risk of HCC into three groups (with risk scores of 0, 1-3, 4-6) among all patients (P < 0.001). AFDA exhibited the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic (0.6812) for predicting HCC, which was higher than those of aMAP (0.6591), mPAGE-B (0.6465), CAMD (0.6379), and THRI (0.6356) and significantly higher than those of PAGE-B (0.6246), AASL-HCC (0.6242), and HCC-RESCUE (0.6242). Patients with a total score of 0 (n = 187, 16.1% of total patients) had the lowest cumulative HCC incidence of 3.4% at 5 years. The combined ALBI and FIB-4-based prediction model can stratify the risk of HCC in patients with compensated cirrhosis and CHB receiving NA therapy.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-10-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-3-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631_(2) for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-8-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-9-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-7-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-4-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-5-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Supplemental material, sj-docx-6-taj-10.1177_20406223211067631 for Long-term surveillance of liver histological changes in chronic hepatitis C patients completing pegylated interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy: an observational cohort study by Ming-Han Hsieh, Tzu-Yu Kao, Ting-Hui Hsieh, Chun-Chi Kao, Cheng-Yuan Peng, Hsueh-Chou Lai, Po-Heng Chuang and Jung-Ta Kao in Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease

Delayed-onset primary liver cancer (PLC) including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) in patients with pyogenic liver abscess (PLA) is not common. The relationship between PLA and delayed-onset PLC is unclear. We investigated the association in a nationwide cohort study. From Taiwan National Health Insurance claims data, a cohort of 17,531 patients with PLA was generated after excluding patients with a history of cancer (n = 2034) and those diagnosed with PLC (n = 572) and other cancers (n = 627) within 1 year of a diagnosis of PLA. An age-, sex-, index year-, and diabetes mellitus (DM)-matched control cohort of 70,124 persons without PLA was selected from the same dataset. Both cohorts were followed up until the end of 2011. The risk of PLC was estimated for both cohorts. The incidence of PLC was nearly 2-fold greater in the PLA group than in the control cohort (29.3 per 10,000 person-years vs. 16.2 per 10,000 person-years). The incidences of HCC and ICC were 1.5- (22.1 per 10,000 person-years vs. 15.0 per 10,000 person-years) and 11-fold greater (6.73 per 10,000 person-years vs. 0.62 per 10,000 person-years), respectively, in the PLA group than in the control cohort. The PLA cohort also had high risks of PLC (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 1.56; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.35–1.81), HCC (aHR = 1.34; 95% CI = 1.15–1.57), and ICC (aHR = 6.94; 95% CI = 4.23–11.57). In conclusion, in this nationwide cohort study, PLA increased the risk of delayed-onset PLC.