Hepatocellular carcinoma treated by conventional transarterial chemoembolization in field-practice: Serum sodium predicts survival

Table 1 Baseline predictors of survival in 270 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma at time of first conventional transarterial chemoembolization n (%)

Variables	n	Patients or median ± IQR	Univariate analysis		Multivariate analysis
			HR (95%CI)	P value	HR (95%CI)	P value
Patient-related characteristics
Age (yr)	270	66 ± 13	-	NS	-	-
Male sex	270	220 (81.5)	-	NS	-	-
Diabetes	270	61 (22.6)	-	NS	-	-
Etiology
Hepatitis C Virus	270	158 (58.5)	-	NS	-	-
Hepatitis B Virus	270	50 (18.5)	0.685 (0.484-0.968)	0.032	-	NS
Alcohol	270	13 (4.8)	-	NS	-	-
Other/unknown	270	49 (18.2)	-	NS	-	-
Liver cirrhosis	270	246 (91.1)	-	NS	-	-
Child-Pugh class A	268	171 (63.8)	-	NS	-	-
MELD	270	9 ± 4	-	NS	-	-
MELD-Na	270	10 ± 3	-	NS	-	-
Ascites (radiological only)	270	61 (22.6)	-	NS	-	-
Encephalopathy	269	18 (6.7)	-	NS	-	-
Esophageal varices	270	134 (49.6)	-	NS	-	-
Segmental portal vein thrombosis (non-tumor)	270	41 (15.2)	1.708 (1.203-2.424)	0.003	1.764 (1.224-2.542)	0.001
Tumor burden
Number of nodules > 3	270	86 (31.8)	1.622 (1.232-2.136)	0.001	1.41 (1.060-1.876)	0.018
Diameter of largest nodule ≥ 5 cm	269	108 (40.2)	1.557 (1.198-2.022)	0.001	1.595 (1.217-2.091)	0.001
Bilobarity	264	132 (48.9)	-	NS	-	-
Previous therapy1	270	73 (27)	-	NS	-	-
Percutaneous Ethanol Injection	270	45 (16.7)	-	NS	-	-
Radiofrequency ablation	270	8 (3)	-	NS	-	-
Liver resection	270	24 (8.9)	-	NS	-	-
Baseline laboratory values
Alanine aminotransferase (UI/L)	270	55 ± 63.5	-	NS	-	-
Gamma-glutamyl transferase (UI/L)	269	71 ± 80	-	NS	-	-
Alkaline phosphatase (UI/L)	269	261 ± 175	1.542 (1.188-2.002)	0.001	1.326 (1.008-1.743)	0.043
Albumin (g/dL)	269	3.5 ± 0.8	-	NS	-	-
Serum sodium (mEq/L)	270	138 ± 5	1.527 (1.168-1.995)	0.002	1.648 (1.249-2.176)	0.000
International normalised ratio	270	1.13 ± 0.19	-	NS	-	-
Total bilirubin (mg/dL)	270	1.1 ± 0.6	-	NS	-	-
Creatinine (mg/dL)	270	1 ± 0.3	-	NS	-	-
Alpha-fetoprotein (ng/mL)	267	24 ± 328	1.428 (1.099-1.856)	0.008	1.346 (1.027-1.763)	0.031

¹Some patients were subjected to more than one method of treatment before chemoembolization. Univariate analysis by Kaplan-Meier method of survival function. Multivariate analysis by backward stepwise cox regression. For continuous variables, median values were used to determine the cut-off. NS: Not significant; MELD: Model for End-stage Liver Disease; MELD-Na: MELD-sodium.