Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jul 15, 2025; 17(7): 105286
Published online Jul 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i7.105286
Nutritional risk index in hepatitis B virus-related liver cancer: Infection prediction and prognosis
Xue-Zhen Zhai, Meng-Yun Dong, Yi-Fan Ding, Ting-Ting Luo
Xue-Zhen Zhai, Meng-Yun Dong, Yi-Fan Ding, Ting-Ting Luo, Department of Infectious Disease, The Fifth People's Hospital of Huai’an, Huai’an 223001, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Zhai XZ designed the study; Zhai XZ, Dong MY, Ding YF, and Luo TT contributed to the review of the manuscript; Zhai XZ was involved in data collection and manuscript preparation; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of The Fifth People's Hospital of Huai’an.
Informed consent statement: Signed informed consent was obtained from all participants and their legal guardians.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ting-Ting Luo, PhD, Department of Infectious Disease, The Fifth People's Hospital of Huai’an, No. 1 Huaihe East Road, Huaiyin District, Huai’an 223001, Jiangsu Province, China. ltt15152836232@163.com
Received: April 18, 2025
Revised: May 11, 2025
Accepted: June 16, 2025
Published online: July 15, 2025
Processing time: 86 Days and 17.4 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Surgical treatment for primary liver cancer can effectively reduce infection risks. Accurate prediction is crucial for timely intervention, particularly to reduce the risk of infection.

AIM

To explore the predictive and prognostic value of the nutritional risk index (NRI) in hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related liver cancer.

METHODS

Ninety-six patients with HBV-related primary liver cancer who underwent surgery at our hospital between May 2022 and May 2024 were included. Patients were classified into infection and non-infection groups, and the NRI was compared. The infection group was further divided into mild and severe infection groups and then into survival and deceased groups, and the NRI was compared. Postoperative follow-up lasted 6 months. The predictive value of NRI for surgical site infections (SSIs), severity of infections, and prognostic assessment was analyzed.

RESULTS

Compared with patients with mild infection, those with severe infections had a significantly lower NRI (P < 0.05). Compared with patients with mild infections, those with severe infections had a significantly higher NRI (P < 0.05). The NRI was significantly lower in the good prognosis group than in the poor prognosis group (P < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the areas under the curve for NRI in predicting SSIs, infection severity, and patient prognosis were 0.984, 0.986, and 0.949, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The NRI can accurately predict postoperative SSIs in patients with HBV-related primary liver cancer and plays a role in predicting the severity of infections and in prognostic assessment.

Keywords: Nutritional risk index; Primary liver cancer; Surgical site infection; Prediction; Severity; Prognostic assessment

Core Tip: The nutritional risk index is closely related to postoperative surgical site infections in patients with hepatitis B virus-related primary liver cancer and can be used for infection prediction and prognostic assessment.