Abstract
Purpose
To evaluate current selection criteria for patients undergoing liver transplantation (LT) in response to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and to analyze the prognostic factors for successful transplantation.
Methods
We evaluated the outcome of 1,078 consecutive patients with HCC from the Shanghai Multi-Center Collaborative LT Group who underwent LT over a 6-year period. Clinicopathologic data for these patients were evaluated. The prognostic significance was assessed using Kaplan–Meier survival estimates and log-rank tests. Multivariate study with Cox’s proportional hazard model was used to evaluate the prognosis-relative aspects.
Results
We determined that expansion of Milan criteria to include: a solitary lesion ≤9 cm in diameter, no more than three lesions with the largest ≤5 cm, a total tumor diameter ≤9 cm without macrovascular invasion, lymph node invasion and extrahepatic metastasis (referred to as the “Shanghai criteria”), resulted in overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates that were similar to the Milan criteria. Multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazards regression model showed that the Child-Pugh-Turcotte classification (P = 0.010, 0.000), tumor differentiation (P = 0.001, 0.000), tumor size (P = 0.000, 0.000) and number (P = 0.014, 0.016), macrovascular invasion (P = 0.022, 0.000) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels (P = 0.031, 0.003) were independent predictors of OS and DFS, while post-LT chemotherapy (OS, P = 0.000) and tumor encapsulation (DFS, P = 0.038) were independent predictors of OS or DFS.
Conclusion
Shanghai criteria expanded the current criteria while maintaining similar survival.
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Abbreviations
- HCC:
-
Hepatocellular carcinoma
- LT:
-
Liver transplantation
- TNM:
-
Tumor-node-metastasis
- US:
-
Ultrasonography
- CT:
-
Computed tomography
- MRI:
-
Magnetic resonance imaging
- WHO:
-
World Health Organization
- MMF:
-
Mycophenolate mofetil
- SRL:
-
Sirolimus
- TACE:
-
Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization
- PEI:
-
Percutaneous ethanol injection
- RFA:
-
Radio-frequency ablation
- OS:
-
Overall survival
- DFS:
-
Disease-free survival
- AFP:
-
Alpha-fetoprotein
- CPT:
-
Child-Pugh-Turcotte
- UICC:
-
International Union against cancer
- HBV:
-
Hepatitis B virus
- HBsAg:
-
Hepatitis B surface antigen
- HCV:
-
Hepatitis C virus
- PET:
-
Positron emission tomography
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by combined grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30873039, 30571801), Shanghai Science and Technology Development Funds (No.06QA14012, No.054119530), Foundation of Shanghai Science Technology Commission (No. 07JC14010, 06xD14004, 044119608 and 07SP07003), the National Key Sci-Tech Special Project of China (No.2008ZX10002-022), and the Program for Excellent Disciplinary Leaders of Shanghai Health Bureau (No.LJ06004). We thank Roche for assistance in the organization of the Shanghai Multi-Center LT Collaborative Group.
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J. Fan, G.-S. Yang, Z.-R. Fu, Z.-H. Peng, Q. Xia, C.-H. Peng, J.-M. Qian, J. Zhou and Y. Xu contributed equally to this work.
This is an original work by all the authors from the Shanghai Multi-center Collaborative Liver Transplantation Group.
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Fan, J., Yang, GS., Fu, ZR. et al. Liver transplantation outcomes in 1,078 hepatocellular carcinoma patients: a multi-center experience in Shanghai, China. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 135, 1403–1412 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-009-0584-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-009-0584-6