ABSTRACT
Objective: By analyzing the clinical characteristics, treatment options, and prognosis of different stages of sarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinoma (SHC), this study aimed to improve clinicians' understanding of SHC. Methods: The clinical data of 24 patients with SHC between January 2015 and December 2019 from First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University were retrospectively analyzed. There were 16 men and 8 women with a median age of 55 years. Results: The clinical symptoms were mainly abdominal pain and fever; 66.7% of the patients had hepatitis virus infection and 79.2% had liver cirrhosis. Patients with stage III- carcinoma accounted for 87.5% of the study population. The mean largest tumor diameter was 6.27cm. Patients who were followed up were treated at our hospital, of which one patient underwent liver transplantation, eight underwent surgery, three received locoregional therapy only, and the rest received best support care, chemotherapy, or targeted or combined immunotherapy. Computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging showed abnormal findings, and biopsy or postoperative pathology was consistent with SHC. The median follow-up period was 4.8(1-39.7) months, and the median overall and disease-free survival of postoperative patients was 4.7 and 2.3 months, respectively. The median overall survival (OS) was 4.8 months for patients with stage III- carcinoma. Conclusions: For patients with stage I SHC, surgical resection is the preferred treatment. Postoperative adjuvant therapy can benefit patients. For patients with stage III- SHC, the benefits of surgery are limited. Systemic chemotherapy, oral targeted drug treatment, or local therapy is feasible for reducing the tumor burden. However, the prognosis of patients with SHC is generally poor, regardless of stage or therapeutic methods. Chemotherapy combined with targeted drugs and immunotherapy may become a new therapeutic direction for advanced SHC.
ABSTRACT
Objective To study the clinicopathological features of sarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinoma (SHC).Methods The clinical data of 42 patients with SHC who underwent surgical resection in the Peking University People's Hospital (n =33) and the Department of Pathology of the Peking University Health Science Center (n=9) from January 2008 to May 2017 were retrospectively analyzed.Results The average age was 58.3 (aged 32～84) years;the ratio of male to female was 2.2 ∶ 1;the average diameter of the lesions was 8.2 cm;the median AFP value was 45.2 ng/ml.The median survival time was 10.5 months,the average progression-free survival time was 2.9 months,and the 5-year survival rate was 25.0％.On histopathology,the tumor consisted of various degrees of different differentiated carcinomas with aligned sarcomatoid spindle cells.Immunohistochemical results in the sarcomatoid region expressed both mesenchymal markers and epithelial-derived markers.Conclusions SHC tumors were highly aggressive,with high rates of lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis.The diagnosis of SHC mainly depended on histopathology.Immunohistochemistry was very important for its diagnosis and differential diagnosis.Surgical resection was the treatment modality of choice to achieve prolonged survival time.