The Performance of GALAD Score for Diagnosing Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Patients with Chronic Liver Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PubMed (original) (raw)

Review

The Performance of GALAD Score for Diagnosing Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Patients with Chronic Liver Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Ming-Cheng Guan et al. J Clin Med. 2023.

Abstract

Background GALAD score, comprising five clinical parameters, is a predictive model developed for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) detection. Since its emergence, its diagnostic ability has been validated in different populations with a wide variation. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate its overall diagnostic performance in differentiating HCC in chronic liver diseases. Methods Eligible studies were searched in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Ovid, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases by 29 May 2022. Pooled sensitivity, pooled specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated. Results Fifteen original studies (comprising 19,021 patients) were included. For detecting any-stage HCC, GALAD score yielded an excellent ability, with pooled sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of 0.82 (95%CI: 0.78-0.85), 0.89 (95%CI: 0.85-0.91), and 0.92 (95%CI: 0.89-0.94), respectively. Notably, further analyses demonstrated a good diagnostic accuracy of GALAD score for identifying Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer staging (BCLC) 0/A HCC, with a moderate sensitivity (0.73 (95%CI: 0.66-0.79)) and a high specificity (0.87 (95%CI: 0.81-0.91)); by contrast, only 38% of early-stage patients can be identified by alpha-fetoprotein, with an AUC value of 0.70 (95%CI: 0.66-0.74). Following subgroup analyses based on different HCC etiologies, higher sensitivities and AUC values were observed in subgroups with hepatitis C or non-viral liver diseases. For detecting BCLC 0/A HCC in the cirrhotic population, GALAD score had a pooled sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of 0.78 (95%CI: 0.66-0.87), 0.80 (95%CI: 0.72-0.87), and 0.86 (95%CI: 0.83-0.89). Conclusions We highlighted the superior diagnostic accuracy of GALAD score for detecting any-stage HCC with a high sensitivity and specificity, especially for early-stage HCC, with a relatively stable diagnostic performance. The addition of GALAD score into ultrasound surveillance may identify more HCC patients. Our findings imply the robust power of the GALAD score as a HCC screening or diagnostic tool, and it should be further validated by more studies with high quality.

Keywords: GALAD score; chronic liver disease; diagnosis; early detection; hepatocellular carcinoma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict to interest.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

The flow chart of studies included in the meta-analysis. WOS, Web of Science.

Figure 2

Figure 2

The pooled sensitivity and specificity with Forest plots (A) and summary receiver operating characteristic curve (B) of GALAD score for discriminating any-stage hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic liver diseases.

Figure 3

Figure 3

The pooled sensitivity and specificity with Forest plots as well as summary receiver operating characteristic curves of GALAD score for discriminating early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma within Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer 0/A staging (A,B) or within Milan criteria (C,D) in chronic liver diseases.

Figure 4

Figure 4

The pooled sensitivity specificity with Forest plots of GALAD score for discriminating hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with different etiologies. (A) Hepatitis B virus; (B) hepatitis C virus; (C) non-viral liver diseases; (D) cirrhosis.

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