Artificial liver treatment improves survival in patients with hepatitis B‐related acute‐on‐chronic liver failure: a case‐control matched analysis

AIMS: The artificial liver support system (ALSS) is recognized as a bridge to liver transplantation (LT) in hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBV-ACLF) patients. However, patient survival remains unknown. We aim to assess the effects of ALSS on survival in HBV-ACLF patients. METHODS: The clinical data of HBV-ACLF patients receiving standard medical treatment (SMT) plus ALSS (ALSS group, n=507) or only SMT (SMT group, n=417) were collected for survival assessment. The main endpoints were cumulative survival rates at days 21, 28 and 90. Four different rigorous analyses were performed to reduce bias and confounding. RESULTS: In the entire cohort, the cumulative survival rates at days 21, 28 and 90 were significantly higher in patients who underwent ALSS treatment (73.3% vs. 59.6%, 69.2% vs. 56.6%, 56.5% vs. 49.1%, respectively, P<0.01) than in those who underwent SMT only. In the 276-pair case-control matched cohort, a significantly higher survival rate was also observed in the ALSS group than in the SMT group on days 21, 28 and 90 (72.5% vs. 60.3%, 68.3% vs. 57.4%, 55.9% vs. 48.5%, respectively, P<0.05), especially in patients with ACLF-1 and -2. By a multivariable-adjusted analysis, ALSS treatment was associated with a significantly lower risk of mortality, especially for ACLF-2 at days 21, 28 and 90. These findings were also confirmed through propensity score matching and inverse probability treatment weighting analysis. CONCLUSIONS: ALSS treatment can improve the short-term survival and associated with a significantly lower risk of short-term mortality in patients with HBV-ACLF, especially ACLF-2.