APACHE IV is superior to MELD scoring system in predicting prognosis in patients after orthotopic liver transplantation.

This study aims to compare the efficiency of APACHE IV with that of MELD scoring system for prediction of the risk of mortality risk after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). A retrospective cohort study was performed based on a total of 195 patients admitted to the ICU after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) between February 2006 and July 2009 in Guangzhou, China. APACHE IV and MELD scoring systems were used to predict the postoperative mortality after OLT. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the Hosmer-Lemeshow C statistic were used to assess the discrimination and calibration of APACHE IV and MELD, respectively. Twenty-seven patients died during hospitalization with a mortality rate of 13.8%. The mean scores of APACHE IV and MELD were 42.32 ± 21.95 and 18.09 ± 10.55, respectively, and APACHE IV showed better discrimination than MELD; the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve for APACHE IV and MELD were 0.937 and 0.694 (P < 0.05 for both models), which indicated that the prognostic value of APACHE IV was relatively high. Both models were well-calibrated (The Hosmer-Lemeshow C statistics were 1.568 and 6.818 for APACHE IV and MELD, resp.; P > 0.05 for both). The respective Youden indexes of APACHE IV, MELD, and combination of APACHE IV with MELD were 0.763, 0.430, and 0.545. The prognostic value of APACHE IV is high but still underestimates the overall hospital mortality, while the prognostic value of MELD is poor. The function of the APACHE IV is, thus, better than that of the MELD.