BACKGROUND AND AIM A uniform staging system for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is needed. In this study, the discrimination abilities of HCC staging systems (American Joint Committee on Cancer [AJCC], Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer [BCLC], Cancer of the Liver Italian Program, and Okuda stage) were compared during the course of untreated HCC.

METHODS We included consecutive 80 patients diagnosed with HCC, but were not treated for HCC, at a single medical center in Korea. In addition, 177 treated patients matched by prognostic factors were included to evaluate the survival gain owing to locoregional treatment.

RESULTS The mean age of untreated patients was 58.7 years. During the observation period (median = 41.1 months), 72 patients died (median survival = 2.1 months; range = 1.6-33.7 months). Among various staging systems, the BCLC system had the best discrimination ability (linear trend χ2 = 16.35). Multivariate analysis indicated that the intrahepatic tumor classification (AJCC T classification) was an independent predictor of overall survival (OS) (P = 0.001). However, either node or metastasis classification failed to affect the OS significantly (both P > 0.05). Patients undergoing intrahepatic tumor control with locoregional therapy showed prolonged survival in those patients with nodal involvement (hazard ratio = 0.315; P = 0.004) and extrahepatic metastasis (hazard ratio = 0.658; P = 0.258), respectively, after adjustment for independent prognostic factors. Compared with untreated patients, BCLC stage A and B patients had > 1 year of survival gain but those with stage C and D did not, owing to locoregional therapy.

CONCLUSION The BCLC system had the best discrimination among untreated HCC patients. However, re-evaluation of the clinical importance of nodal and metastasis classification might be required.