Predictive factors for distant recurrence of HCV‐related hepatocellular carcinoma after radiofrequency ablation combined with chemoembolization

Abstract

SUMMARY BackgroundRadiofrequency ablation (RFA) therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma has enabled good local control to be possible. However, after successful local control, distant recurrences frequently occur in the remnant liver.

Stromal cell-derived factor-1 but not its receptor, CXCR4, gene variants increase susceptibility and pathological development of hepatocellular carcinoma

“…One of the limitations of our study is that we did not obtain information on risk factors, such as alcohol and tobacco consumption, clinical status, and other hepatocarcinogenesis related factors, which are considered as risk factors for HCC (3,4,(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40), in our recruited healthy control group because it was difficult to request responses from healthy individuals with regard to this information or to collect these data during health examinations. This limitation may limit the adjustment of these confounding factors; however, we adjusted these covariates in HCC patients for estimation of the effect of gene polymorphism on the clinicopathological development of HCC.…”

Preoperative serum gamma-glutamyl transferase to alanine aminotransferase ratio is a convenient prognostic marker for Child-Pugh A hepatocellular carcinoma after operation

“…Some studies from HBV or HCV-related HCC suggested that high levels of ALT or GGT were related to higher incidence of HCC development, recurrence and poor prognosis [6,8,[11][12][13][14]. However, the predictive ability of ALT was not reliable when its cutoff point or the etiological factor was changed [3,[15][16][17][18]. In addition, hepatitis activity may fluctuate with time, therefore serial evaluations of these markers throughout the perioperative period were usually needed but inconvenient to obtain in practice [6,12,14].…”

Clinical significance of tumor markers in detection of recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma after radiofrequency ablation

“…The local tumor progression rate following RFA combined with chemoembolization (combination therapy) was lower than the rates in previous studies that used RFA alone (10)(11)(12). Despite good control of treated lesions, new tumors frequently occur, resulting in high distant recurrence rates (4,6).…”

“…Surgical resection has been considered to be the best treatment for early-stage HCCs, but only 9-29% of patients with HCC are candidates for surgery, owing to either underlying chronic liver disease resulting in poor hepatic reserve or a multifocal distribution of tumor nodules (4). Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) was first described by Rossi et a (5) and it is a relatively new technique for local HCC therapy, with many studies having demonstrated its clinical utility and safety (6)(7)(8). A high local cure rate can be achieved without adversely affecting background liver function, and it has been playing an important role in the treatment of HCC (9).…”