A novel online calculator to predict risk of microvascular invasion in the preoperative setting for hepatocellular carcinoma patients undergoing curative-intent surgery

Background: The presence of microvascular invasion (MVI) has been highlighted as an important determinant of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) prognosis. We sought to build and validate a novel model to predict MVI in the preoperative setting. Methods: Patients who underwent curative-intent surgery for HCC between 2000 and 2020 were identified using a multi-institutional database. Preoperative predictive models for MVI were built, validated, and used to develop a web-based calculator. Results: Among 689 patients, MVI was observed in 323 patients (46.9%). On multivariate analysis in the test cohort, preoperative parameters associated with MVI included α-fetoprotein (AFP; odds ratio [OR] 1.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23–1.83), imaging tumor burden score (TBS; hazard ratio [HR] 1.11, 95% CI 1.04–1.18), and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR; OR 1.18, 95% CI 1.03–1.35). An online calculator to predict MVI was developed based on the weighted β-coefficients of these three variables (https://yutaka-endo.shinyapps.io/MVIrisk/). The c-index of the test and validation cohorts was 0.71 and 0.72, respectively. Patients with a high risk of MVI had worse disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) compared with low-risk MVI patients (3-year DFS: 33.0% vs. 51.9%, p < 0.001; 5-year OS: 44.2% vs. 64.8%, p < 0.001). DFS was worse among patients who underwent an R1 versus R0 resection among those patients at high risk of MVI (R0 vs. R1 resection: 3-year DFS, 36.3% vs. 16.1%, p = 0.002). In contrast, DFS was comparable among patients at low risk of MVI regardless of margin status (R0 vs. R1 resection: 3-year DFS, 52.9% vs. 47.3%, p = 0.16). Conclusion: Preoperative assessment of MVI using the online tool demonstrated very good accuracy to predict MVI.