The risk factors for long-term survival after radiofrequency ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma: a multi-center study / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the influencing factors of long-term survival for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated by radiofrequency ablation (RFA).Methods:A retrospective analysis of 255 patients who underwent RFA as the main treatment modality for HCC from May 1, 2004 to Feb 28, 2015 was performed. All patients were divided into two groups according to the postoperative survival time the 5-year or more survival group and the less than 5-year survival group. Clinical indicators such as age, maximum tumor size and number, and frequency of radiofrequency ablation were compared between the two groups. Cox single factor and multiple factors were used to analyze the influencing factors of long-term survival.Results:The median overall survival of all the 255 patients was 4.3 years (range 0.5-15.5 years). There were 115 patients (45.1%) who survived for 5 years or more and 140 patients (54.9%) who survived for less than 5 years. The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year survival rates of all the patients were 86.7%, 61.2%, 44.8% and 34.8%, respectively. There were no significant differences in gender, age, accompanying symptoms, aetiology of liver disease, level of alpha fetoprotein and treatment ( P>0.05), but there were significant differences in Child-Pugh class, liver cirrhosis, maximum diameter of tumor, tumor number, tumor stage, and frequency of RFA ( P<0.05) between the 2 groups of patients. Multivariate analysis showed that age ≥70 years old, Child-Pugh class B, maximum diameter of tumor >5.0 cm, multiple tumor were independent risk factors of long-term survival, but the number of sessions of RFA was a protective factor. Conclusions:For medium sized HCC and solitary large HCC, RFA combined with other therapeutic modalities could achieve satisfactory therapeutic results. Age, Child-Pugh class, maximum diameter of tumor, tumor number and RFA frequency were influencing factors for long-term survival of HCC patients.