A Better Risk Scoring System for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis

The Mayo risk score is commonly used by clinicians to advise patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) regarding their prognosis. However, this scoring system predicts only short-term survival and does not predict the need for liver transplantation.

Now, using clinical and genetic data from a large research cohort of patients with PSC in the U.K., investigators have developed and validated a new scoring system to predict risk for transplantation or death (all-cause). Data from 1000 patients were used to derive separate models that predicted short-term (2-year) and long-term (10-year) risks, and the results were validated in two independent, external cohorts totaling 450 patients.

Approximately one third of the derivation cohort under…