Association between the albumin–bilirubin (ALBI) score and severity of portopulmonary hypertension (PoPH): A data‐mining analysis

Abstract Introduction Portopulmonary hypertension (PoPH) is a severe complication of chronic liver disease. We aimed to investigate the etiology of chronic liver disease and the factors associated with the severity of PoPH. Subjects and Methods Echocardiography was undergone in 833 patients with chronic liver disease during 2005–2019 and 13 patients (1.6%) were diagnosed with PoPH in this observational study. At the diagnosis of PoPH, liver function was evaluated by albumin–bilirubin (ALBI) score. Severe PoPH was defined as (1) mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mPAP) ≥50 mmHg or (2) mPAP: 35–49 mmHg and pulmonary vascular resistance ≥400 dyne/s/cm 5 . Factors associated with severe PoPH were evaluated by decision‐tree analysis. Results In patients with PoPH, the leading etiology of chronic liver disease was hepatitis C virus (HCV) (46.2% [sustained virological response (SVR): 23.1% and non‐SVR: 15.4%]). Severe PoPH was observed in 53.8% of patients and the 5‐year survival rate was 48.1%. There was a significant correlation of mPAP with ALBI score ( r = 0.6456, p = 0.0171). In the decision‐tree and random forest analyses, the most impacted classifier for severe PoPH was the ALBI score. In patients with ALBI score ≥−1.45, all patients showed severe PoPH, while the prevalence of severe PoPH was 25.0% in patients with ALBI score <−1.45. Conclusions We found that HCV including SVR was the major etiology of chronic liver disease in patients with PoPH. Moreover, we revealed that the ALBI score was the most impacted factor associated with severe PoPH. Thus, ALBI score may be useful for the estimation of pulmonary vascular resistance.