Objective To explore the prognosis value of the prognostic index (PNI) in intermediate and advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with targeted therapy.

Methods To collect the clinical data of 90 patients with liver cancer who received targeted treatment from January 2017 to May 2020 in Xiamen Hospital, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University and follow up their survival period. The PNI value was calculated according to the blood biochemical results, and the difference of clinical factors between the high PNI group (n=68, PNI ≥ 45) and the low PNI group (n=22, PNI < 45) was compared. Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model were used to analyze the relationship between PNI and overall survival of HCC patients with targeted therapy.

Results A total of 90 HCC patients were included and the median follow-up time was 11.5 months. The mean age was 56.0 years, and 24.4% of the patients were in the low PNI group. Compared with the high PNI group, the patients in the low PNI group were older (P=0.04) and had larger tumor diameters (P=0.01). Cox multivariate analysis showed that the mortality risk of HCC patients in the low PNI group was increased by 2.59 times (95% CI 1.10-6.11), and the difference was statistically significant (P=0.03).

Conclusions Low PNI is an independent factor affecting the poor prognosis of HCC patients with targeted therapy, which has certain guiding significance in clinical treatment.