Impact of pretransplant MELD score on posttransplant outcome in orthotopic liver transplantation for patients with acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure

This study was performed to evaluate the usefulness of the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score in comparison with the Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score to predict short-term postoperative survival and 3-month morbidity among patients with acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed data from all patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation in our unit from December 1999 to November 2005, on the admission day MELD and CTP scores were calculated for each patient according to the original formula. We evaluated the accuracy of MELD and CTP to predict postoperative short-term survival and 3-month morbidity using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and Kaplan-Meier analysis, respectively. Results. Seven of 42 patients died within 3-months follow-up. The MELD scores for nonsurvivors (32.97 +/- 7.11) were significantly higher than those for survivors (24.90 +/- 4.96; P < .05), CTP scores were significantly higher, too (12.57 +/- 0.98, 11.51 +/- 1.17; P < .05). ROC analysis identified the MELD best cut-off point to be 25.67 to predict postoperative morbidity (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.841; sensitivity = 85.7%; specificity = 60.0%), and the CTP best cut-off point was 11.5 (AUC = 0.747; sensitivity = 85.7%; specificity = 54.3%). MELD score was superior to CTP score to predict postoperative short-term survival and 3-month morbidity among patients with acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation. Conclusion. MELD score was an objective predictive system and more efficient than CTP score to evaluate the risk of 3-month morbidity and short-term prognosis in patients with acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation.