BACKGROUND Recently, a modified insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF)-Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) classification was proposed to improve the original CTP classification. This study aimed to validate the new IGF-CTP classification system as a prognostic maker for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a hepatitis B virus endemic area.

METHODS We conducted a post-hoc analysis of a prospective cohort study. We used Harrell's C-index and U-statistics to compare the prognostic performance of both IGF-CTP and CTP classifications for overall survival. We evaluated the relationship between HCC stage and the four components of the IGF-CTP classification (serum levels of IGF-1, albumin, and total bilirubin and prothrombin time [PT]) using nonparametric trend analysis.

RESULTS We included a total of 393 patients in this study. In all, 55 patients died during the median follow-up of 59.1 months. There was a difference between IGF-CTP class and CTP class in 14% of patients. Overall, the IGF-CTP classification system had a higher prognostic value (C-index = 0.604, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.539-0.668) than the CTP system (C-index = 0.558, 95% CI = 0.501-0.614), but the difference was not statistically significant (P = .07 by U-statistics). A lower serum level of IGF-1 was related to a more advanced cancer stage (P < .01). The remaining components of the IGF-CTP classification were not significantly related to tumor stage (P = .11 for total bilirubin; P = .33 for albumin; and P = .39 for PT).

CONCLUSIONS The IGF-CTP classification was slightly better than the original CTP classification for predicting survival of patients with HCC in a chronic hepatitis B endemic area. This is most likely due to the fact that serum IGF-1 levels reflect underlying HCC status.