Clinical Studies on 111 Cases of Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma: The Study for Survival Period and Prognostic Factors

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC), a highly malignant tumor with a poor prognosis, is one of the common cancers in Korea like other Asian and African countries. Despite of recent advances in diagnostic and surgical techniques, early diagnosis of HCC is difficult and chance of surgical resection is still very low due to the multiplicity of tumor and associated liver cirrhosis. Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization(TAE) is a proven effective method of treating HCC regardless of operability.

The current study was undertaken on 111 cases to evaluate the survival period of the pat-ients with HCC and to find their prognostic factors.

The results were as follows:

1) The mean age of the patients was 54.8 years, with a range from 33 to 79 years. The highest incidence of age was in the 6th decade and the male to female ratio was 4.6:1.

2) The survival period of the patients was significantly related to serum albumin, SGOT, bilirubin and treatment(TAE).

3) The survival period was not significantly related to size and type of tumor.

4) The revised staging systems by Primack and Okuda were not significantly related to the survival period. But Child's classification was significantly related to the survival period.

5) The median survival period of TAE group was 11 months while non-TAE group was 0.5 month(p=0.0023).

6) Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the treatment modality(TAE or non-TAE group) was the factor with the greatest relative risk and an independent prognostic value.

Accordingly, it is suggested that TAE is an effective method for treating unresectable HCC, and the prospective investigations on TAE are needed.