CYTOREDUCTIVE SURGERY FOR HEPATOCELLULAR-CARCINOMA

A prospective study was conducted on 26 patients for cytoreductive sur gery of inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma. These patients underwent cytoreduction with liver resection, cryosurgery, microwave tissue coag ulation and/or absolute alcohol injection. In-hospital mortality was 7 .7%. The symptomatic relief and quality of survival were excellent. Th e median survival of patients after cytoreduction was 10.0 months and the survival was much better than those of 26 patients matched by sex, age, tumour size, Child-Pugh grading and Karnofsky scores who receive d systemic chemotherapy during the same period of the study (log rank test, P = 0.0001). There was no statistical difference between the sur vival curves of those patients who received (19 patients) and those wh o did not receive (7 patients) additional treatment by chemotherapy or selective internal radiation therapy after cytoreduction. This sugges ts that the gained survival benefit could have been derived mainly fro m the cytoreductive surgery rather than the additional treatments.