Weighted thyroid-stimulating hormone disturbance in prognosis of hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure.

Aim: To weight the prognostic value of thyroid hormones in catastrophic acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF).

Methods: A retrospective cohort (n = 635) and two prospective cohorts (n = 353, and 198) were enrolled in this study. The performance of a novel developed prognostic score was assessed from aspects of reliability, discrimination, and clinical net benefit.

Results: Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) was identified to have the most potential as a prognostic predictor for hepatitis B virus-related ACLF among thyroid hormones. The novel score (modified chronic liver failure-organ failure score [mCLIF-OFs]) was developed with weighted TSH and other scored organs in the CLIF-OFs using the retrospective cohort (n = 635). The predicted risk and observed probabilities of death were comparable across the deciles of mCLIF-OFs (Hosmer-Lemeshow χ  = 4.28, p = 0.83; Brier scaled = 11.9). The C-index of mCLIF-OFs (0.885 [0.883-0.887]) for 30-day mortality was significantly higher than that of the CLIF-OFs, chronic liver failure-sequential organ failure assessment score (CLIF-SOFAs), CLIF-C ACLFs, Model of End-stage Liver Disease (MELD), and Child-Pugh (all p < 0.001). The absolute improvements of prediction error rates of the mCLIF-OFs compared to the above five scores were from 19.0% to 61.1%. After the analysis of probability density function, the mCLIF-OFs showed the least overlapping coefficients (27.9%) among the above prognostic scores. Additionally, the mCLIF-OFs showed greater net benefit than the above five prognostic scores over a wide range of risk threshold of death. Similar results were validated in two prospective ACLF cohorts with HBV and non-HBV etiologies.

Conclusion: Weighted TSH portended the outcome of ACLF patients, which could be treated as a "damaged organ" of the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis. The novel mCLIF-OFs is a reliable prognostic score with better discrimination power and clinical net benefit than CLIF-OFs, CLIF-SOFAs, CLIF-C ACLFs, MELD, and Child-Pugh.