Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks as the 3rd most common cancer in Korea. At the time of presentation with HCC, many patients have poor hepatic reserve function and advanced HCC with portal vein thrombosis (PVT) that precludes effective therapy. Surgical resection is the 1st choice treatment but, it is not a suitable option for patients with advanced disease. Other treatment modalities, which have been used for unresectable HCC with PVT, include systemic chemotherapy, hepatic arterial chemotherapy, tumor embolization, radiation therapy, and a combination of the above. Because of the fatal toxicities often encountered with TACE in advanced HCC patients with PVT, hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy is an alternative modality. This method enable repeated chemotherapy infusions into the HCC lesions, and allows generating high antitumor effect and low adverse effects such as hepatic artery occlusion or stenosis. In this review, the principles and efficacy of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy for treatment of advanced HCC are reviewed. In the future, we need large scaled prospective randomized trials to determine the definite role of this hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy.

• Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma;Transcatheter artrerial chemoembolization;Transcatheter artrerial chemoembolization