Sultan’s Score: A Novel Predictive Score to Predict Complete Response Following Drug-Eluting Bead Chemoembolization
2025

Sultan’s Score: A New Way to Predict Treatment Success for Liver Cancer

Sample size: 41 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Muacevic Alexander, Adler John R, Alharbi Sultan R

Primary Institution: King Saud University

Hypothesis

Can a new imaging-based scoring system accurately predict complete response to drug-eluting bead chemoembolization in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma?

Conclusion

The Sultan’s score effectively predicts complete response in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after treatment.

Supporting Evidence

  • 28 patients (68.3%) showed complete response after treatment.
  • The Sultan’s score had a sensitivity of 78.6% and specificity of 76.9% for predicting complete response.
  • Patients with higher Sultan’s scores were more likely to achieve complete response.

Takeaway

Doctors created a new score to help figure out which liver cancer patients will respond well to a specific treatment. The higher the score, the better the chance of success.

Methodology

Retrospective analysis of 41 patients with solitary hepatocellular carcinoma treated with drug-eluting TACE, collecting clinical data and outcomes.

Potential Biases

Selection bias may be present due to the retrospective design.

Limitations

The study is retrospective, includes only solitary HCC cases, is single-centered, has a small sample size, and lacks external validation.

Participant Demographics

Participants included 41 patients (28 men and 13 women) with a mean age of 68.29 years, primarily with hepatitis C as the etiology.

Statistical Information

P-Value

0.031

Confidence Interval

0.688-0.966

Statistical Significance

p<0.05

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.7759/cureus.76822

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