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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Comparison Between Cox Proportional Hazards and Machine Learning Models for the Prognostication of Recurrence and Survival Following Liver Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hwee-Leong Tan

Corresponding Author

Hwee-Leong Tan

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

Correspondence:

Hwee-Leong Tan ([email protected])

Brian K. P. Goh ([email protected])

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Claudia Y. T. Liauw

Claudia Y. T. Liauw

Department of Data Science, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

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Tse-Lert Chua

Tse-Lert Chua

Department of Data Science, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

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Amanda Y. R. Lam

Amanda Y. R. Lam

Department of Data Science, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

Department of Endocrinology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

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Cliburn Chan

Cliburn Chan

Department of Data Science, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA

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Ye-Xin Koh

Ye-Xin Koh

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

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Jin-Yao Teo

Jin-Yao Teo

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

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Peng-Chung Cheow

Peng-Chung Cheow

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

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Alexander Y. F. Chung

Alexander Y. F. Chung

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

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Brian K. P. Goh

Corresponding Author

Brian K. P. Goh

Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Center, Singapore, Singapore

Correspondence:

Hwee-Leong Tan ([email protected])

Brian K. P. Goh ([email protected])

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First published: 20 July 2025

ABSTRACT

Background

A robust prognostication model after liver resection for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can guide clinical management. We aimed to develop a prognostication model for HCC recurrence and survival following liver resection, comparing between Cox proportional hazards (CPH) and supervised machine learning models.

Methods

We studied all patients who underwent liver resection for HCC between January 1, 2000 and October 31, 2022 at our institution. We aimed to predict recurrence-free survival following resection and identify risk categories for HCC recurrence. The CPH model and two supervised machine learning models (random survival forest [RSF] and extreme gradient boosting [XGB]) were used. Model performance was assessed with C-index, time-dependent area under curve (tdAUC) and Brier score.

Results

We studied 1290 patients, with 737 (57.1%) experiencing an event (HCC recurrence or death) over a median follow-up duration of 19.2 months. The CPH model had the overall best performance (C-index: 0.663, tdAUC at 6 months: 0.752; 1 year: 0.740; 2 years: 0.722; 5 years: 0.624). Using this model, patients stratified based on risk score could be discriminated between low, intermediate, and high-risk groups (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

A CPH-derived prognostication model was effective for predicting and risk stratifying recurrence and survival following liver resection for HCC.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.