The use of Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) as a predictor of 3 month post discharge mortality in cirrhotic patients

Is Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) a predictor of 3 month post discharge mortality in cirrhotic patients? Cirrhotic patients often experience an abrupt decline in their health, which often leads to frequent hospitalization and can cause morbidity and mortality. Various models are currently used to predict mortality in cirrhotics however these have their limitations. The Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) being one of the oldest performance status scales, is a health care provider-administered assessment that has been validated to predict mortality across the elderly and in the chronic disease populations. We used the KPS performance status scale to envisage short-term mortality in cirrhotic and HCC patients who survive to be discharged from hospital. Our study showed that KPS one week post-discharge, child pugh score, hospital stay, international normalized ratio, serum albumin, total bilirubin and serum creatinine showed statistical significance on univariate analysis. On multivariate analysis, KPS was found to be statistical significant predictor of 3-month mortality. Hence KPS can be utilized to identify cirrhotic patients at risk of 3-month post discharge mortality.