Clinical Impact of Viral Load on the Development of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Liver-Related Mortality in Patients with Hepatitis C Virus Infection

Table 2

Analysis of variables associated with the development of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Variables	Univariate analysis; hazard ratio (95% CI)	value	Multivariate analysis; hazard ratio (95% CI)	value
Age, year (<50 versus ≧50)	11.07 (2.01–62.42)	0.006	9.71 (1.03–39.19)	0.014
Sex (female versus male)	0.94 (0.89–1.29)	0.914
Initial presence of cirrhosis (no versus yes)	28.24 (3.87–205.43)	<0.001	19.34 (2.26–165.07)	0.004
Serum HCV RNA titer, log IU/mL (≦6 versus >6)	5.01 (1.46–26.47)	0.018	4.63 (1.14–18.88)	0.032
HCV genotype (non-1b versus 1b)	0.32 (0.26–1.07)	0.185
Platelet, 10^3/mm^3 (≧130 versus <130)	19.97 (3.32–86.12)	<0.001	13.97 (1.96–68.99)	0.009
Alanine aminotransferase, IU/mL (<40 versus ≧40)	1.00 (0.97–1.02)	0.833
Prothrombin time, INR (<1.2 versus ≧1.2)	2.52 (1.86–2.99)	0.304
Creatinine, mg/dL (<1.2 versus ≧1.2)	0.95 (0.91–1.01)	0.827
Bilirubin, mg/dL (<1.5 versus ≧1.5)	0.97 (0.92–1.00)	0.864
Albumin, g/dL (≧3.0 versus <3.0)	3.28 (2.46–6.63)	0.030	1.154 (1.072–5.198)	0.165
History of antiviral therapy (yes versus no)	0.23 (0.35–1.01)	0.061
Sustained virologic response (yes versus no)	0.17 (0.34–1.00)	0.097

Significant variables in the univariate analysis were incorporated into a multivariate analysis.
HCV: hepatitis C virus.