Staging systems for predicting survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after surgery.

AIM

To compare the staging systems for stratifying and predicting the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after partial hepatectomy (PH).

METHODS

Clinical data about 438 HCC patients who underwent PH from January 1991 to December 2004 at our hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Tumor stage was evaluated following the Chinese tumor node metastasis (TNM) and barcelona clinic liver cancer (BCLC) staging systems, respectively. Survival curves for the HCC patients were plotted using the Kaplan-Meier method and differences were compared by the log-rank test. The accuracy of each system for predicting death of HCC patients was evaluated by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

RESULTS

The HCC patients were classified into stages I-III, stages I-IV and stages A-C, according to the 3 staging systems, respectively. Log-rank test showed that the cumulative survival rate was significantly different for the HCC patients at 3 Chinese system stages, TNM stages I and II, TNM stages III and IV, and 3 BCLC stages (P < 0.05). However, no significant difference was found in the HCC patients at TNM stages II and III. The accuracy of the Chinese and BCLC staging systems was higher than that of the TNM staging system for predicting the survival rate of HCC patients.

CONCLUSION

The Chinese and BCLC staging systems are better for stratifying and predicting the prognosis of HCC patients after PH than the TNM staging system.