17, 18 Also, the TACE technique used at the Medical University of Innsbruck (validation cohort) has been reported.19 More information is outlined in the Supporting Methods section. Both institutions used a treatment on demand TACE schedule Alectinib datasheet and no TACE session was performed in the presence of complete radiologic response. The study design is provided in Fig. 2. Patient characteristics prior to the first and second TACE are presented with descriptive statistics. The chi-squared test (Fisher’s exact test) was used to compare quantitative outcome between
groups. OS was defined as the time from the day prior to the second TACE session until death or last follow-up. Survival curves were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Median survival times (OS) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are reported. The log-rank test was used to assess the effects of patient
variables (pre-TACE 1 and pre-TACE 2) as well as tumor response variables and variables representing worsening of liver function (between TACE-1 and TACE-2) on OS. The effect of continuous variables (e.g., AST, ALT, γGT etc.) on OS was assessed for each variable by forming four groups at its quartiles. When the respective log-rank test was significant, a spline-based approach was applied to assess the functional form of the variable on OS.20 Based on this graphical representation a clinically sensible and applicable transformation of the respective variable was chosen. Variables with P < 0.05 in the univariate analysis were entered PS-341 solubility dmso as candidate variables into a stepwise Cox regression model (conditional backward selection). The regression coefficients of the Cox regression model were multiplied by 2 and rounded in order to obtain easy to use point numbers facilitating the bedside calculation of the ART score. To avoid overoptimistic results due to model fitting and evaluation in the same dataset, we evaluated the prognostic performance of the ART score in an independent
external validation cohort. All reported P-values are results of two-sided tests. A significance level of 0.05 was applied throughout. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS v. 20.0 (SPSS, Sunitinib solubility dmso Armonk, NY) and SAS 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). AFP, alpha-fetoprotein; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; ART, Assessment for Retreatment with TACE; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; BCLC, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer; CR, complete response; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; HR, hazard ratio; PD, progressive disease; OLT, orthotopic liver transplantation; OS, overall survival; RFA, radiofrequency ablation; SD, stable disease; TACE, transarterial chemoembolization. Patient characteristics of both cohorts prior to the first and second TACE are shown in Table 1.