Staging Hepatocellular Carcinoma by a Novel Scoring System (BALAD Score) Based on Serum Markers  Hidenori Toyoda, Takashi Kumada, Yukio Osaki, Hiroko Oka, Fumihiro Urano, Masatoshi Kudo, Takashi Matsunaga  Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology  Volume 4, Issue 12, Pages 1528-1536 (December 2006) DOI: 10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021 Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 1 Distribution of patients with HCC according to tumor marker elevation. Cutoff values were set at 400 ng/mL for AFP, 15% for AFP-L3, and 100 mAU/mL for DCP. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 2 Patient survival according to the elevation of a tumor marker. (A) According to the elevation of AFP; (B) according to AFP-L3; (C) according to DCP. Patients with elevation of a tumor marker exhibited significantly lower survival rate in comparison with those without the elevation of tumor marker for all 3 markers. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 3 Patient survival according to tumor progression. (A) According to TNM tumor stage by Liver Cancer Study Group of Japan; (B) according to number of elevated tumor markers. Both systems predicted patient survival well, and the discriminative ability was comparable. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 4 Patient survival according to remnant liver function. (A) According to Child-Pugh classification; (B) according to serum bilirubin-albumin score. Both systems predicted patient survival well, and the discriminative ability was comparable. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 5 Patient survival according to previously reported staging systems. (A) According to CLIP scoring system; (B) according to JIS scoring system. Both systems predicted patient survival well. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 6 Patient survival according to BALAD scoring system. BALAD scores predicted patient survival well, and the discriminative ability was comparable to that of the CLIP and JIS systems. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2006 4, 1528-1536DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2006.09.021) Copyright © 2006 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions