Elsevier

Surgery

Volume 160, Issue 5, November 2016, Pages 1227-1235
Surgery

Liver
Selection criteria for hepatic resection in intermediate-stage (BCLC stage B) multiple hepatocellular carcinoma

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2016.05.023Get rights and content

Background

Several reports have suggested that hepatic resection provides a survival benefit in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at the intermediate stage of the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer classification (BCLC-B). The operative indications for multiple BCLC-B have not been established, however. The aim of this study was to clarify the survival benefit of hepatic resection for multinodular BCLC-B HCC.

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed 85 patients with BCLC-B HCC who underwent liver resection. To evaluate clinicopathologic factors and survival, we divided the patients into 3 types based on radiologic findings regarding tumor number and maximum tumor diameter: type 1, up to 3 lesions <5 cm; type 2, up to 3 lesions ≥5 cm or 4 nodules of any size; type 3, >4 nodules.

Results

Thirty-four patients were classified as type 1, 32 as type 2, and 19 as type 3. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival in type 1 were 97.1%, 87.4%, and 75.2%, respectively. Those in type 2 were 84.0%, 74.0%, and 63.0%, and those in type 3 were 64.9%, 55.7%, and 37.1%, respectively. The overall survival of type 1 patients was significantly better than that of type 3 patients. The prognosis of type 2 patients was worse than that of type 1 patients and better than that of type 3. Multivariate analysis identified radiologic tumor size and tumor number as independent prognostic factors.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that hepatic resection should be considered a radical treatment for multinodular BCLC-B HCC. Our subclassification can be applied to select the initial treatment and when making decisions regarding hepatic resection of BCLC-B HCC with multiple nodules.

Section snippets

Patients

We retrospectively analyzed the HCC patients who underwent liver resection at Osaka University Hospital from January 1991 to December 2013. Among 792 patients, 85 (10.7%) were classified as BCLC-B. BCLC-B HCC comprises highly heterogeneous patients, and the benefit of hepatic resection varies. We diagnosed nodules as HCC based on radiologic vascular findings and elevation of tumor markers, α-fetoprotein (AFP) or protein-induced vitamin K absence or antagonist II (PIVKA-II). The typical

Patient characteristics

The clinicopathologic characteristics of the 85 patients (67 men, 18 women) evaluated in the present study are summarized in Table I. The median age was 65 years (range 45–84 years). Seventeen patients were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen, and 43 patients were positive for the hepatitis C virus antibody. Forty-three patients (50.6%) were diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. Indeed, the BCLC system was ordinarily designed for patients with cirrhosis. The preoperative median for serum AFP and

Discussion

In this study, we retrospectively analyzed 85 patients who underwent hepatic resection for BCLC-B HCC. Several reports have suggested that operative resection provides better long-term outcomes than TACE for BCLC-B HCC patients.7, 12 Most reports were retrospective studies and lack proper control groups. Others showed that an operation did not bring survival benefits compared with TACE. Selection criteria for hepatic resection have not been established, however, especially in multinodular

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    The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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