Aims and objectives
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third most frequent cause of cancer death(1,2).
Although tumor resection remains a first-line treatment,
only approximately 30% of patients can benefit from curative therapies such as resection or liver transplantation and approximately 70% of patients are not candidates as a result of poor hepatic reserve or tumor burden(3).
So nowadays locoregional treatments such as radiofrequency ablation (RFA),
percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) are widely performed to unresectable HCC because...
Methods and materials
Patients:
In this study,
72 patients with 86 HCCs of RFA high-risk group who underwent combined use of PEI and RFA in Dongsan medical center of Keimyung university between January 1,
2010,
and Aprial 31,
2013 were evaluated retrospectively with their medical records kept when they had visited our center and got the procedure.
The RFA high-risk group criteria were as follows: Tumors are located within 10mm away from liver vessels more than 3mm in diameter,
hepatic capsules or vital organs such as a gall...
Results
Results:
The mean follow-up period was 13.0 months.
We ran a enhanced CT scan to evaluate the technical success rate of the combination therapy.
On the CT scan,
80 cases were induced to complete necrosis and 6 cases of incomplete necrosis by one session got additional another session (mean 1.07 session per mass).And then induced to complete necrosis at the first day after the additional session on CT scan as all the 86 cases of tumors were induced to complete necrosis meaning 100% procedural success...
Conclusion
RFA is a safe and effective treatment for HCC which is surgically unresectable.
But,
the recurrence and complication rate would increase if the tumor is adjacent to a large intrahepatic vessels,
hepatic capsule or major organs.
So that means RFA high-risk group.
In this study,we evaluated effectiveness,
safety and follow up results of combined use of RFA and PEI of HCCs difficult to ablate with RFA alone.
In conclusion,
this study showed that the combined use of RFA and PEIcould be used to treat HCCs...
References
1.Park JW: Hepatocellular carcinoma in Korea: introduction and overview.
Korean J Gastroenterol 2005; 45: 217-26.
2.Parkin DM,
Bray F,
Ferlay J,
et al: Global cancer statistics 2002.
CA Cancer J Clin 55:74-108,2005
3.Lai EC,
Fan ST,
Lo CM,
Chu KM,
Liu CL,
Wong J: Hepatic resection for hepatocellular carcinoma: an audit of 343 patients.
Ann Surg 1995; 221: 291-8.
4.Lo CM,
Ngan H,
Tso WK,
Liu CL,
Lam CM,
Poon RT,
et al.: Randomized controlled trial of transarterial lipiodol chemoembolization for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
Hepatology...