Development and Validation of Prognostic Models to Estimate the Risk of Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy After TIPS Creation: A Multicenter Study

Overt hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a major complication of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS). This study aimed to develop and validate prognostic models to identify patients at different risks of overt HE within 3 months after TIPS. METHODS: Two cohorts of patients with cirrhosis undergoing TIPS insertion were retrospectively included. In the derivation cohort of 276 patients, 3 models were established in increasing order of complexity: core model (age + Child-Pugh class), sarcopenia model (core model + sarcopenia), and full model (sarcopenia model + post-TIPS portal pressure gradient). All models were internally validated for discrimination and calibration and externally validated in an independent cohort of 182 patients. RESULTS: During a 3-month follow-up period, 61 (22.1%) and 33 patients (18.1%) developed overt HE in the derivation and validation cohort, and sarcopenia was associated with increased risk of the outcome. In the derivation cohort, the core model showed a c-statistic of 0.68 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.61–0.75), and discrimination improved in the sarcopenia model (c-statistic 0.73; 95% CI 0.66–0.80). The full model that extended the core model with inclusion of sarcopenia and post-TIPS portal pressure gradient showed a significant improvement in discriminative ability (0.77; 95% CI 0.71–0.83; P = 0.001). Both sarcopenia and full model yielded comparable performances in the validation cohort. DISCUSSION: We developed and externally validated 2 prediction models applied before (sarcopenia model) and after TIPS (full model) to estimate the risk of post-TIPS overt HE. These tools could aid to select appropriate candidates for TIPS and guide postoperative management.