Predicting Mortality Across a Broad Spectrum of Liver Disease-An Assessment of Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD), Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP), and Creatinine-Modified CTP Scores.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The role of model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) among Indian patients with cirrhosis is uncertain. We studied and compared MELD with Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) and creatinine-modified-CTP (CrCTP) scores for predicting 1-, 3-, and 6-months mortality.

METHODS

One-hundred and two patients with cirrhosis were studied. The CrCTP was calculated by adding creatinine score of 0, 2 and 4 with creatinine levels of ≤1.2mg/dL, 1.3-1.8 mg/dL and ≥1.9mg/dL, respectively to CTP score. Survival curves were plotted and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were used to compare the scores. Predictors of mortality were analyzed using Cox proportional hazards model.

RESULTS

Scores of CTP, CrCTP, and MELD have excellent diagnostic accuracy for predicting mortality (c-statistics >0.85). The MELD was superior to CTP for predicting 3-months [c-statistic and 95% confidence interval, 0.967 (0.911-0.992) vs 0.884 (0.806-0.939)] and 6-months [0.977 (0.925-0.996) vs 0.908 (0.835-0.956)] mortality (P=0.05), while CrCTP [0.958 (0.899-0.988)] was better than CTP for predicting 3-months mortality (P=0.02). Serum creatinine (hazard ratio 4.43, P<0.0001) is a strong independent predictor of mortality.

CONCLUSION

The MELD accurately predicts mortality in cirrhosis and is better than CTP for predicting the short-term and intermediate-term mortality. Adding serum creatinine to CTP though significantly improves its diagnostic accuracy for short-term mortality; however, it remains lower than MELD alone.