PD345 - BEYOND ONCOLOGY SCREENING: WHY NUTRISCORE FAILS TO PREDICT NUTRITIONAL RISK IN HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA—A CALL FOR HEPATOLOGY-SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT TOOLS

PD345

BEYOND ONCOLOGY SCREENING: WHY NUTRISCORE FAILS TO PREDICT NUTRITIONAL RISK IN HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA—A CALL FOR HEPATOLOGY-SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT TOOLS

J. Sicchieri^1,*, M. T. T. B. D. Oliveira¹, I. S. Matsushita², T. C. P. Lunardi¹, F. F. Souza³, A. M. Navarro²

¹Hospital das Clínicas, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, ²Nutrition and Metabolism Course, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, ³Ribeirão Preto Medical School, Universidade of Sào Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

Rationale: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) causes high morbidity and mortality, with complications leading to malnutrition. Early nutritional risk identification is crucial, but the efficacy of oncology-specific screening tools in HCC remains unclear

Methods: This cross-sectional study evaluated adult HCC outpatients receiving nutritional care. Data were collected from medical records. Hepatic function and disease severity were assessed via Child-Pugh, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC), Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD), and Albumin-Bilirubin (ALBI) scores. Nutritional risk was evaluated with NutriScore. Spearman’s correlation and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used (p<0.05). The study was approved by the local Research Ethics Committee.

Results: We included 63 patients (44 males), mostly Child-Pugh A (75%). Median scores: MELD 10.0, ALBI 1.0, and NutriScore 1.0. Spearman analysis showed moderate correlation between ALBI and MELD (r=0.461; p<0.01), and weak correlation between NutriScore and MELD (r=0.306; p<0.05). MELD was significantly higher in worse Child-Pugh classes (p<0.01), unlike NutriScore (p=0.054). NutriScore and ALBI showed no correlation (p=0.888).

Conclusion: NutriScore lacked sensitivity to discriminate nutritional risk across liver disease severities (Child-Pugh). The MELD-ALBI correlation confirms their prognostic consistency. Findings highlight the need for HCC-specific nutritional screening tools that consider hepatic impairment complexity.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared