Real-World Effectiveness From the Asia Pacific Rim Liver Consortium for HBV Risk Score for the Prediction of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients Treated With Oral Antiviral Therapy

BackgroundPatients on oral antiviral (OAV) therapy remain at hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk. Risk prediction tools distinguishing treated patients with residual HCC risk are limited. The aim of this study was to develop an accurate, precise, simple-to-use HCC risk score using routine clinical variables among a treated Asian cohort.MethodsAdult Asian chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients on OAV were recruited from 25 centers in the United States and the Asia-Pacific region. Excluded persons were coinfected with hepatitis C, D, or human immunodeficiency virus, had HCC before or within 1 year of study entry, or their follow-up was ResultsA total of 8048 patients were randomized to the derivation (n = 5365) or validation group (n = 2683). The REAL-B model included 7 variables (male gender, age, alcohol use, diabetes, baseline cirrhosis, platelet count, and alpha fetoprotein), and scores were categorized as follows: 0–3 low risk, 4–7 moderate risk, and 8–13 high risk. Area under receiver operating characteristics were >0.80 for HCC risk at 3, 5, and 10 years, and these were significantly higher than other risk models (p < .001).ConclusionsThe REAL-B score provides 3 distinct risk categories for HCC development in Asian CHB patients on OAV guiding HCC surveillance strategy.