A Revised Scoring System for Liver Transplant Candidates Improves Mortality Prediction

In 2002, the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score was adopted as the standard for prioritizing candidates for liver transplants in the U.S. In an effort to improve the MELD score's ability to predict mortality among candidates, researchers have optimized the MELD equation using data on the most recent wait-listed patients with end-stage liver disease, examined the effect of including serum sodium levels in the model, and compared the performance of this new optimized model to the original MELD equation.

The study involved a total of 28,131 patients on the waiting list of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Data from 14,214 patients on the waiting list from 2005 to 2006 were used to derive a revised MELD model, and da…