Severity of chronic liver disease and prognosis in cirrhosis
The Child-Pugh score grades the severity of chronic liver disease from five variables and sorts patients into class A, B or C. It remains widely used for prognosis in cirrhosis and for judging the risk of surgery and of certain drugs in hepatic impairment.
Class A indicates well-compensated disease, class B significant functional compromise and class C decompensated disease. The app names the class from the total.
They answer different questions. MELD and PELD are used for transplant prioritisation and are purely laboratory-based; Child-Pugh includes clinical variables and remains common for surgical risk and drug dosing.
It is used in paediatric hepatology, though PELD is the standard for transplant allocation in children under 12.
Ascites and encephalopathy are clinical gradings rather than measurements, so they can be scored differently by different assessors.