The primary covariates used in the trial were World Health Organisation (WHO) performance status, chemotherapy received, baseline liver function and study phase; these were balanced between treatment arms and are described elsewhere (Hoff et al, 2012).
For the biomarker analysis, HRs were derived from a Cox proportional hazards model with covariates for World Health Organisation (WHO) performance status, chemotherapy received (HORIZON II only), baseline liver function and study phase (i.e., whether or not patients contributed to an end-of-Phase II analysis in the HORIZON programme; HORIZON II only).
In terms of discriminative values of different baseline liver function enzymes and glucose homeostasis variables (glucose, insulin, and HOMA-IR) (Table 3), the predictive models produced C values ranging from 0.701 to 0.751 and from 0.814 to 0.830 for prediabetes and diabetes for these measures, respectively, which were relatively similar to each other in magnitude.
We analyzed 12 000 treated hypertensive individuals attending a tertiary care clinic followed up for 35 years for association between baseline liver function tests and cause-specific mortality after adjustment for conventional cardiovascular covariates.
To effectively study this problem we have excluded patients previously treated with anti-tuberculosis drugs, critically sick patients as assessed by level of consciousness and concomitant illnesses, and patients with baseline liver function test (LFT) values above the normal range.
There was no statistically significant difference in baseline liver function in terms of ALT, bilirubin and albumin between the two groups of patients.
52 All HIV patients should be screened for viral hepatitis and have baseline liver function tests at the time of their HIV diagnosis.
To characterize baseline liver function, the Model of End-stage Liver Diseand (MELD) score and the plasma disappearance rate of indocyanine green (ICG-PDR) were calculated in each patient, and the Child-Pugh score only in patients with cirrhosis.
However, because of the potential risk of acute liver failure, patient selection is important, with factors suggesting a poor prognosis being tumour diameter above 10 cm, diffuse or infiltrating tumour pattern, more than nine tumours within the liver and poor baseline liver function [ 4].
Because the tumor stages and the baseline liver function were comparable between the groups, it is reasonable to postulate that the better hepatic reserves in the antiviral therapy patients accounted for the higher rate of multiple sessions of TACE or local ablation for HCC.
Dose effect relationships probably also differ for each tumour cell type and for different baseline liver function statuses.
