Model for end stage of liver disease (MELD) is better than the Child-Pugh score for predicting in-hospital mortality related to esophageal variceal bleeding.

AIM

The Child Pugh and MELD are good methods for predicting mortality in patients with chronic liver disease. We investigated their performance as risk factors for failure to control bleeding, in-hospital overall mortality and death related to esophageal variceal bleeding episodes.

METHODS

From a previous collected database, 212 cirrhotic patients with variceal bleeding admitted to our hospital were studied. The predictive capability of Child Pugh and MELD scores were compared using c statistics.

RESULTS

The Child-Pugh and MELD scores showed marginal capability for predicting failure to control bleeding (the area under receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) values were < 0.70 for both). The AUROC values for predicting in-hospital overall mortality of Child-Pugh and MELD score were similar: 0.809 (CI 95%, 0.710 - 0.907) and 0.88 (CI 95% 0.77- 0.99,) respectively. There was no significant difference between them (p > 0.05). The AUROC value of MELD for predicting mortality related to variceal bleeding was higher than the Child-Pugh score: 0.905 (CI 95% 0.801-1.00) vs 0.794 (CI 95% 0.676 - 0.913) respectively (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

MELD and Child-Pugh were not efficacious scores for predicting failure to control bleeding. The Child-Pugh and MELD scores had similar capability for predicting in-hospital overall mortality. Nevertheless, MELD was significantly better than Child-Pugh score for predicting in-hospital mortality related to variceal bleeding.