Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 26, 2022; 10(33): 12156-12163
Published online Nov 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i33.12156
Transarterial chemoembolization combined with radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of large hepatocellular carcinoma with stage C
Sha-Sha Sun, Wen-Dong Li, Jing-Long Chen
Sha-Sha Sun, Wen-Dong Li, Jing-Long Chen, Department of Oncology, Capital Medical University Affiliated Beijing Ditan Hospital, Beijing 100015, China
Author contributions: Sun SS, Li WD and Chen JL design the experiment, collected the data; Li WD and Chen JL analysed data; Sun SS wrote and revised the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Beijing Ditan Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University Institutional Review Board (Approval No. 013-03).
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jing-Long Chen, MS, Associate Professor, Department of Oncology, Capital Medical University Affiliated Beijing Ditan Hospital, No. 8 Jingshun East Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015, China. hhh540027@126.com
Received: August 13, 2022
Peer-review started: August 13, 2022
First decision: September 23, 2022
Revised: September 29, 2022
Accepted: October 24, 2022
Article in press: October 24, 2022
Published online: November 26, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Systemic therapy and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) are the recommended treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with barcelona clinic liver cancer (BCLC) stage C in China. However, some late stage HCC patients because of economic reason can’t apply systemic therapy. It is known that TACE plays an important role in the non-operative treatment of advanced HCC. But TACE alone is difficult to cause complete tumor necrosis. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a valid treatment strategy for early HCC. Nevertheless, it also has a limited range, and for large HCCs, complete ablation is difficult to achieve. Some studies have shown that the combination of TACE and RFA(TACE-RFA) can improve overall survival (OS) in patients with large HCC with a better efficacy than either RFA or TACE alone.

Research motivation

There have been no studies to explore the efficacy of TACE-RFA in large HCC patients with stage C.

Research objectives

This study aimed to determine the safety and efficacy of TACE-RFA in HCC with large (≥ 5.0 cm in diameter) and BCLC stage C.

Research methods

The complications were observed. The associations between OS and treatment method were analysed.

Research results

The combination of TACE and RFA was safe. The median OS of the TACE-RFA group was significantly higher than that of the TACE group.

Research conclusions

TACE-RFA was better than TACE alone in improving survival for large HCC patients with BCLC stage C. Moreover, the combination therapy appeared to be relatively safe.

Research perspectives

A large clinical trial is necessary to assess curative effects.