Milan criteria are useful predictors for favorable outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma patients undergoing liver transplantation after transarterial chemoembolization

Figure 1 Selection of patients according to the treatments given prior to LT. Among a total of 105 HCC patients, 63 patients met the Milan criteria at the time of LT. After excluding 6 patients who received treatments other than TACE, there were 36 patients in TACE + LT group and 21 in LT group.

Figure 2 Representative cases for measurement of viable tumor size treated by TACE prior to LT. A: A tumor nodule with compact lipiodol uptake, no enhancement at arterial phase, and no washout at portal or delayed phase was considered as a non-viable tumor and was excluded from the measurement of tumor size or number; B: For a nodule showing arterial enhancement and delayed washout at the margin, tumor size was defined as the difference from diameter of the entire nodule to diameter of lipiodol-uptaken portion.

Figure 3 Comparison of overall survival rate between TACE + LT and LT groups. There was no obvious difference in 5-year survival rate after LT between the two groups (57% vs 74%; P = 0.70).

Figure 4 Comparison of cumulative HCC recurrence rate between TACE + LT and LT groups. Five-year recurrence rate was similar between the two groups (8.3% vs 4.8%; P = 0.90).