Progress and prospect on the clinicopathological study of small hepatocellular carcinoma / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Early detection and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most direct and effective ways to improve the long-term outcome of patients with HCC. The comparative study on clinicopathological characteristics of surgically resected micro HCC (≤1 cm), small HCC(≤3 cm), middle HCC (3-5 cm), and large HCC (>5 cm) showed that ≤3 cm small HCC had the features of DNA diploidy, well differentiation, relatively slow growth, encapsulation, rare long-distance metastatic foci and thrombosis, easy to be radically resected and long-term postoperative survival. It is suggested that HCC growing to about ≤3 cm is an important growth phase when the change of pathobiological characteristics of HCC from a relatively benign to a more malignant behavior would occur. This is also the important time to carry out radical treatment to get better results. Therefore,further research on the early diagnosis and treatment as well as the pathobiological features of small HCC ≤3 cm should be undertaken as one of the key clinical and pathological studies in the future.