Severe acute autoimmune hepatitis: How to early predict who will not respond to corticosteroids and needs urgent liver transplantation?

Backround: In acute severe autoimmune hepatitis (AS-AIH), the early identification of predictors of non-response to corticosteroids and the optimal timing for liver transplantation (LT) remains controversial.

Aims: To determine early predictors of non-response to corticosteroids and to assess the usefulness of severity scores, namely the recently developed SURFASA.

Methods: Retrospective multicentre cohort study including consecutive patients admitted for AS-AIH between 2016 and 2020. Definitions- response to corticosteroids: LT-free survival at 90 days (D90); SURFASA score: -6.8 + 1.92x(D0-INR)+1.94xINR[(D3-D0)/D0]+1.64xbilirubin[(D3-D0)/D0].

Results: We included 26 patients [median age 56 (45-69) years; 22 (84.6%) women]. All patients underwent corticosteroid therapy. Overall survival reached 73%. amongst the non-responders, 2 (7.8%) underwent LT and 5 (19.2%) died. The interval between admission and initiation of corticosteroids was not different between responders and non- responders [13 (7-23) vs. 8 (3-10), P:0.06], respectively. SURFASA and MELD-Na⁺ (D3) scores showed an AUROC of 0.96 (0.87-1) and 0.92 (0.82-0.99), respectively, for prediction of non-response. SURFASA >-2.5 had a sensitivity of 85.7% and a specificity of 100% and MELD-Na⁺ (D3) >26 had sensitivity of 85.7% and a specificity of 78% for the prediction of non-response.

Conclusions: SURFASA and MELD-Na⁺ at D3 scores are useful in early identification of non-responders to corticosteroids.