Purpose: The BALAD model, a scoring system for staging hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is based on five serum markers: bilirubin, albumin, lens culinaris agglutinin-reactive alpha-fetoprotein [AFP], AFP, and des-gamma-carboxy prothrombin. It has shown good ability to predict survival in patients with HCC irrespective of stage and treatment, a high BALAD value being associated with a poor prognosis. However, its prognostic significance is unclear in patients with advanced unresectable HCC (uHCC) who undergo systemic therapies. We assessed the prognostic ability of BALAD in this subpopulation.
Methods: In a multicenter cohort of 1,510 patients with advanced uHCC treated with first-line systemic therapies, the baseline BALAD score was calculated on the basis of pretreatment serum levels. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), overall response rate (ORR), and disease control rate (DCR) were calculated and related to the BALAD score.
Results: In all, 502 patients were treated with sorafenib, 435 with lenvatinib, and 573 with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab. Irrespective of treatment regimen, OS, PFS, ORR, and DCR were all independently negatively correlated with the BALAD score. The beneficial effects of specific systemic therapy regimens differed according to the BALAD score.
Conclusion: The BALAD score had good prognostic ability for predicting OS and PFS in patients with advanced uHCC who underwent systemic therapies and was associated with treatment response. Application of the BALAD score offers increased precision in the prediction of outcome both for individual patients and for specific subgroups of patients with HCC.