[New scoring systems for severity outcome of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma: current issues concerning the Child-Turcotte-Pugh score and the Model of End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score].

It has been approximately 30 years since Child-Turcotte-Pugh score has been used as a predictor of mortality in patients with liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Recently, new prognostic models such as Model for End-Stage Liver disease (MELD), Short- and Long-term Prognostic Indices (STPI and LTPI), Rockall score, and Emory score were proposed for predicting survival in patients with liver cirrhosis treated by transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS). In MELD scoring, three independent variables which showed a wide range of results including serum creatinine, serum bilirubin and international normalization ratio (INR) of prothrombin time were evaluated in log(e) scale in comparison with simply categorized-into-three scoring system of Child-Turcotte-Pugh. The etiology of liver cirrhosis was applied to the score of MELD: alcoholic or cholestatic, 0; viral or others, 1. Concurrent statistic (C-statistic) of MELD (0.73-0.84) was slightly superior or insignificantly different to that (0.67-0.809) of Child-Turcotte-Pugh score. In February 2002, UNOS status 2a and 2b were replaced with MELD score for priority allocation of liver transplantation. MELD score does not reflect the severity of patients with HCC or metabolic disorders. For assessing prognosis in patients with liver cirrhosis or HCC, there seems little reason to replace the well established Child-Turcotte-Pugh score. Herein the literatures was briefly reviewed.