Noninvasive Prognostic Scoring Systems in Male Alcoholic Liver Cirrhosis: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background: The incidence of alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ALC) has been increasing annually. However, the accuracy of noninvasive scoring systems to assess the prognosis of ALC patients remains to be explored. Objectives: To compare scoring systems: Child-Pugh (CP), model for end-stage liver disease (MELD), albumin-bilirubin (ALBI), age-bilirubin-international normalized ratio-creatinine (ABIC), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and Maddrey’s discriminant function (MDF) in predicting short-term and long-term mortality in ALC patients. Methods: In this retrospective study, 152 male patients with ALC were enrolled from the First Affiliated Hospital of Jishou University from February 2015 to December 2022. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to evaluate the predictive accuracy of six scoring systems. Results: In 152 male ALC patients enrolled, all scoring systems showed predictive accuracy in predicting 1-month mortality (P < 0.05), except NLR (P = 0.985). Of these, both MELD score [area under the curve (AUC): 0.902] and MDF (AUC: 0.963) had higher prediction accuracy. For 3-, 6-, 12-, and 24-month mortality, MELD score exhibited an excellent predictive ability with the AUROCs of 0.873, 0.869, 0.830, and 0.826, respectively. Conclusions: The MELD was generally a reliable and superior prognostic scoring system in predicting short-term and long-term mortality for male ALC patients, except that MDF was slightly better than MELD in predicting 1-month mortality. Our findings help confirm the accuracy of noninvasive scoring systems for ALC patients.