Prognostic Performance of LI-RADS v2018 Features and Clinical-Pathological Factors in Alpha-Fetoprotein-Negative Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Motivation: Evaluate the performance of the LI-RADS v2018 features and clinical-pathological factors for predicting the prognosis of AFP-negative HCC. Goal(s): To evaluate the performance of the LI-RADS v2018 features and clinical-pathological factors for predicting the prognosis of AFP-negative HCC. Approach: A total of 169 AFP-negative HCC patients were enrolled. Risk factors associated with prognosis were identified by Cox regression analysis. Results: Six risk factors, namely the LI-RADS category, blood products in mass, MVI, tumor size, cirrhosis, and ALBI grade, were associated with recurrence-free survival. The model effectively stratified patients with AFP-negative HCC into high- and low-risk groups with significantly different outcomes (p < 0.05). Impact: In this study, our prognostic model composed of the LI-RADS category, blood products in mass, MVI, tumor size, cirrhosis, and ALBI grade accurately classified patients into different recurrence risk groups.