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

Table 4

Analysis of variables associated with liver-related mortality.

Variables	Univariate analysis; hazard ratio (95% CI)	value	Multivariate analysis; hazard ratio (95% CI)	value
Age, year (<50 versus ≧50)	1.02 (1.01–1.49)	0.605
Sex (female versus male)	6.24 (2.94–9.12)	0.095
Initial presence of cirrhosis (no versus yes)	8.33 (2.98–54.23)	0.015	6.13 (1.60–31.78)	0.012
Serum HCV RNA titer, log IU/mL (≦6 versus >6)	3.03 (1.79–5.39)	0.197
HCV genotype (non-1b versus 1b)	0.01 (0.00–1.05)	0.998
Platelet, 10^3/mm^3 (≧130 versus <130)	2.99 (1.57–5.21)	0.048	1.23 (1.01–3.13)	0.191
Alanine aminotransferase, IU/mL (<40 versus ≧40)	0.99 (0.96–1.02)	0.357
Prothrombin time, INR (<1.2 versus ≧1.2)	6.26 (3.63–11.01)	0.075
Creatinine, mg/dL (<1.2 versus ≧1.2)	0.85 (0.71–1.01)	0.831
Bilirubin, mg/dL (<1.5 versus ≧1.5)	1.12 (0.87–1.97)	0.378
Albumin, g/dL (≧3.0 versus <3.0)	4.19 (1.89–68.41)	0.003	9.17 (1.02–48.51)	0.002
History of antiviral therapy (yes versus no)	0.25 (0.11–1.00)	0.202
Sustained virologic response (yes versus no)	0.01 (0.00–1.04)	0.998

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