Prognostic impact of albumin-bilirubin score in predicting the long-term survival of distal cholangiocarcinoma after radical surgery

Background The Albumin-Bilirubin Score (ALBI) serves as an indicator of nutritional status and is a widely recognized prognostic biomarker in cancer patients. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the association between ALBI and survival outcomes in patients with distal cholangiocarcinoma (dCCA) after radical surgery, and develop a nomogram model based on the ALBI to predict individual survival. Methods A total of 177 individuals with dCCA receiving surgery from Jan 2011 to Jan 2022 were enrolled in the research. The association between ALBI and clinicopathologic factors was investigated. The impact of ALBI on recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards models. Nomograms based on ALBI and other prognostic variables screened by multivariate analysis were produced in predicting RFS and OS of dCCA patients following radical surgery, and the nomograms were evaluated by the consistency index (C-index), calibration curve and decision curve analysis (DCA) curve. Results The optimal cut-off value for ALBI was − 1.67, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.71. The High-ALBI group had a considerably shorter RFS and OS (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that the ALBI, degree of differentiation, portal vein invasion, and lymph node invasion were significant prognostic factors for RFS, and that the ALBI, CA19-9, degree of differentiation, lymph node invasion, and portal vein invasion were significant prognostic factors for OS. The nomograms were constructed based on these significant prognostic factors. The calibration curves displayed good consistency between actual and predicted probability. Nomograms based on these variables have better discriminant ability in predicting RFS and OS compared with the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM stage. Moreover, the scores predicted by the nomogram enabled patient stratification into low-points and high-points groups. Kaplan-Meier curves demonstrated that patients in the high-points group had considerably better prognoses than those in the low-points group (p < 0.001). Conclusion ALBI was an independent prognostic factor in predicting RFS and OS of dCCA patients after radical surgery. The nomograms based on ALBI can provide reliable, personalized survival prediction for dCCA.