Prognostic nomogram based on the gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase-to-platelet ratio for patients with compensated cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma after local ablation.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with compensated cirrhosis typically face a high prevalence and unfavorable prognosis. However, there is currently a deficiency in prediction models to anticipate the prognosis of these patients. Therefore, our study included the Gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase-to-platelet ratio (GPR) in analysis and aimed to develop a nomogram for HCC patients with compensated cirrhosis after local ablation.

Methods: Enrolling 669 patients who underwent local ablation at Beijing You'an Hospital during the period from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2022, this study focused on individuals with compensated cirrhotic HCC. In a ratio of 7:3, patients were allocated to the training cohort (n=468) and the validation cohort (n=201). Lasso-Cox regression was employed to identify independent prognostic factors for overall survival (OS). Subsequently, a nomogram was constructed using these factors and was validated through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis (DCA).

Results: GPR, age, and hemoglobin were identified by Lasso-Cox regression as independent prognostic factors of the nomogram. The area under the ROC curves (AUCs) for 3-, 5-, and 8-year OS (0.701, 0.755, and 0.768 for the training cohort; 0.684, 0.707, and 0.778 for the validation cohort), and C-indices (0.695 for training cohort; 0.679 for validation cohort) exhibited the excellent predictive ability of the nomogram. Calibration curves and DCA curves indicated favorable calibration performance and clinical utility. Patients were further stratified into two risk groups according to the median nomogram score. There existed an obvious distinction between the two groups both in the training cohort and validation cohort.

Conclusion: In summary, this research established and validated a novel nomogram to predict OS, which had good predictive power for HCC patients with compensated cirrhosis after local ablation.