Prognosis for pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma

We retrospectively compared the outcome of 13 patients at our institution a nd that of 163 reported cases of pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC ) with that of conventional HCC subdivided by tumor diameter (group A: less than 2 cm; group B: 2-5 cm, group C: more than 5 cm), The survival of pati ents with pedunculated HCC in the 163 reported cases was no different from that of group B, but less favorable than in group A (p < 0.01) and more fav orable than in group C (p < 0.01). Among the 163 patients with pedunculated HCC, the 113 cases of surgically treated patients had higher survival than the 21 patients treated with transcatheter arterial embolization (n = 16) or transcatheter arterial infusion chemotherapy (n = 5) (p < 0.01) and than 29 conservatively treated patients (p < 0.001), A total of 70 patients out of 163 (42%) died within 1 year after diagnosis, Additionally, almost all cases of pedunculated HCC showed histologically moderately or poorly differ entiated characteristics according to Edmondson and Stainer's classificatio n or the WHO classification. These results suggest that pedunculated HCC ha s not a favorable prognosis if appropriate surgical resection has not been performed very early within a few months because of its rapid progressive n ature.