%0 Journal Article
%T The Effect of Model for End-Stage Liver Disease 3.0 on Disparities between Patients with and without Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Korea.
%A Kim K
%A Kim DG
%A Lee JG
%A Joo DJ
%A Lee HW
%J Yonsei Med J
%V 64
%N 11
%D 2023 Nov
%M 37880845
%F 3.052
%R 10.3349/ymj.2023.0163
%X <B>OBJECTIVE: </B>The model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) 3.0 has recently been suggested for determining liver allocation. We aimed to apply MELD 3.0 to a Korean population and to discover differences between patients with and without hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).<BR><B>METHODS: </B>This study is a retrospective study of 2203 patients diagnosed with liver cirrhosis at Severance Hospital between 2016-2022. Harrell's concordance index was used to validate the ability of MELD scores to predict 90-day survival.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>During a mean follow-up of 12.9 months, 90-day survival was 61.9% in all patients, 50.4% in the HCC patients, and 74.8% in the non-HCC patients. Within the HCC patients, the concordance index for patients on the waitlist was 0.653 using MELD, which increased to 0.753 using MELD 3.0. Among waitlisted patients, the 90-day survival of HCC patients was worse than that of non-HCC patients with MELD scores of 31-37 only (69.7% vs. 30.0%, p=0.001). Applying MELD 3.0, the 90-day survival of HCC patients was worse than that of non-HCC patients across a wider range of MELD 3.0 scores, compared to MELD, with MELD 3.0 scores of 21-30 and 31-37 (82.0% vs. 72.5% and 72.3% vs. 24.3%, p=0.02 and p<0.001, respectively).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>MELD 3.0 predicted 90-day survival of the HCC patients more accurately than original MELD score; however, the disparity between HCC and non-HCC patients increased, particularly in patients with MELD scores of 21-30. Therefore, a novel exception score is needed or the current exception score system should be modified.