Wanxin Shi,1,2,* Huiwen Yan,1,* Xiaoli Liu,1 Lihua Yu,1 Yuqing Xie,1 Yuan Wu,1 Yuling Liang,1 Zhiyun Yang1 

1Center of Integrative Medicine, Beijing Ditan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2First Clinical Medical College, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Zhiyun Yang, Center of Integrative Medicine, Beijing Ditan Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 8 Jing Shun East Street, Beijing, 100015, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86-10-84322148, Email yangzhiyun2016@163.com

Purpose: Portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) is one of the hallmarks of advanced Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Platelet (PLT) function parameters and CD8+T cells (CD8+Ts) play an important role in HCC progression and metastasis. This study is committed to establishing an efficient prognosis prediction model and exploring the combined effect of PLT and CD8+Ts on PVTT prognosis.
Patients and Methods: This retrospective study collected 932 HCC patients with PVTT from 2007 to 2017 and randomly divided them into a training cohort (n = 656) and a validation cohort (n = 276). We performed multivariable Cox and Elastic-net regression analysis, constructed a nomogram and used Kaplan–Meier survival curves to compare overall survival and progression-free survival rates in different substrata. Relationships between indicators involved were also analyzed.
Results: We found tumor number, size, treatment, PLT, γ-glutamyl transferase, alpha-fetoprotein, mean platelet volume, and CD8+Ts were related to the 5-year OS of patients with PVTT, and established a nomogram. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUCs) for predicting the 1-year OS rates were 0.767 and 0.794 in training and validation cohorts. The calibration curve and decision curve indicated its predictive consistency and strong clinical utility. We also found those with low PLT (< 100*10^9/L) and high CD8+Ts (> 320 cells/μL) had a better prognosis.
Conclusion: We established a well-performing prognostic model for PVTT based on platelet functional parameters and CD8+Ts, and found that PT-8 formed by PLT and CD8+Ts was an excellent predictor of the prognosis of PVTT.

Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, portal vein tumor thrombus, platelet, CD8+T cells counts, prognostic model, correlation analysis