Preoperative systemic inflammatory response index predicts the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after liver transplantation

BackgroundPreoperative inflammatory status plays an important role in the prognosis of malignancy. We sought to explore the value of preoperative inflammatory biomarkers in predicting long-term outcomes of liver transplantation (LT) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MethodPatients who underwent LT for HCC in our hospital between January 2010 and June 2020 were included in this study. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and outcome data were obtained. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the predictive value of inflammatory biomarkers. The effectiveness of inflammatory biomarkers in predicting outcomes was analyzed by univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards analyses. ResultsA total of 218 patients were included in the study, with a mean age of 53.9 +/- 8.5 years. The AUC of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic immune inflammation index (SII), and systemic inflammatory response index (SIRI) for overall survival (OS) were 0.741, 0.731, 0.756, 0.746, and 0.749, respectively. Cox proportional hazards model indicated that SIRI > 1.25 was independently associated with low OS [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.258, P = 0.024]. PLR > 82.15 and SIRI > 0.95 were independently associated with low disease-free survival (HR = 1.492, P = 0.015; and HR = 1.732, P = 0.008, respectively). In the survival analysis, the prognosis of patients with high preoperative SIRI and PLR was significantly worse (P < 0.001). ConclusionSIRI and PLR were useful prognostic markers for predicting patients with HCC after LT.

Automated summary

This study found that the preoperative inflammatory status plays a crucial role in the long-term prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients after liver transplantation (LT). Specifically, the preoperative inflammatory biomarkers SIRI and PLR can be used to predict the prognosis of HCC patients after LT.