ISSN: 1837-9664Journal of Cancer
Global reach, higher impact
J Cancer 2021; 12(20):6231-6241. doi:10.7150/jca.55806 This issue Cite
Research Paper
Preoperative Versus Postoperative Transarterial Chemoembolization on Prognosis of Large Hepatocellular Carcinoma
1. Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510060, P. R. China
2. Department of Liver Surgery, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510060, P. R. China.
3. Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 139 Renmin Middle Road, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China.
4. Department of Minimally Invasive Interventional Radiology, and Department of Radiology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510260, China.
#These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract
Background: Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) has proven to be an effective adjuvant therapy with liver resection (LR) to treat patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to evaluate outcomes in patients with HCC larger than 5 cm, comparing those who had TACE before LR to those who had TACE after LR.
Materials and methods: A total of 320 consecutive patients who underwent LR in combination with TACE for HCC larger than 5 cm from January 2009 to December 2014 were enrolled in study. Patients were divided into two groups: preoperative TACE group (n=199) and postoperative TACE group (n=121). Overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) of patients were compared between preoperative TACE and postoperative TACE groups by propensity score-matching (PSM). We determined prognostic factors for recurrence and death using multivariate cox regression analysis.
Results: Among the 320 patients, the median age was 48 (range, 18 to 75) years, and 285 (89.1%) patients were male. During the follow- up period, 88 (44.2%) patients in the preoperative TACE group and 69 (57.0%) patients in the postoperative TACE group died. Before PSM, both OS and RFS were significantly longer in the preoperative TACE group than those in the postoperative TACE group (P=0.001 and P<0.001, respectively). After PSM, compared to those received postoperative TACE, patients with preoperative TACE had significantly better OS (Hazard ratio [HR]=1.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.22-3.02; P=0.005) and RFS (HR=1.64; 95% CI, 1.16-2.32; P=0.005).
Conclusions: Patients with large HCC undergoing LR appear to derive greater disease control and survival benefit from a single preoperative TACE treatment than from postoperative TACE.
Keywords: Large hepatocellular carcinoma, Transarterial chemoembolization, Liver resection, Prognosis, Propensity score matching
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