Staging of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma patients in the targeted therapy era.

209 Background: Several hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) staging systems are currently available. However, they were all developed before the targeted therapy era prevailed in the last decade which has changed the natural history of the disease. Our study goal was to test the performance of different HCC staging systems in patients with HCC who were treated at our institution during the last decade. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 438 patients from early 2000 to late 2009. Baseline clinicopathologic parameters and staging were available, including the TNM, Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP), Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC), Okuda, and Chinese University Prognostic Index (CUPI). We performed survival and cox-regression analyses, and compared the staging systems’ predictive ability using Harrell's C-index. Finally, we performed a subgroup analysis of 3 independent cohorts based on whether or not they received sorafenib, whether or not they had hepatitis, and whether or not they had cirrhosis. ...