Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) is associated with a dismal prognosis. Atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (atezo-bev) is the recommended palliative treatment, and approximately 10% of the patients may experience a complete response (CR), according to the mRECIST criteria. The treatment duration is until disease progression or unacceptable side effects occur. Long-term continuation can cause potential toxicities and a substantial financial burden, making early treatment discontinuation a viable option. This report describes durable CR after discontinuing atezo-bev treatment in three patients with HCC and PVTT.
Although hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with a poor prognosis, management of early-stage HCC is often successful with highly efficacious treatment modalities such as liver transplantation, surgical resection, and radiofrequency ablation. However, unfavorable clinical outcomes have been observed under certain circumstances, even after efficient treatment. Factors that predict unsuitable results after treatment include tumor markers, inflammatory markers, imaging findings reflecting tumor biology, specific outcome indicators for each treatment modality, liver functional reserve, and the technical feasibility of the treatment modalities. Various strategies may overcome these challenges, including the application of reinforced treatment indication criteria with predictive markers reflecting tumor biology, compensation for technical issues with up-to-date technologies, modification of treatment modalities, downstaging with locoregional therapies (such as transarterial chemotherapy or radiotherapy), and recently introduced combination immunotherapies. In this review, we discuss the challenges to achieving optimal outcomes in the management of early-stage HCC and suggest strategies to overcome these obstacles.
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Mixed hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma (HCC-CC) are rare tumors, and the risk factors associated with them are not well understood yet. Moreover, the diagnosis of mixed HCC-CC can be complicated due to the difficulty in distinguishing mixed HCC-CC from HCC and intrahepatic CCC on radiological images. Serum tumor markers are useful when the radiological images are inconclusive. It remains unclear whether the prognosis of mixed HCC-CC differs from that of HCC. However, several studies have reported that the tumor recurrence and patient survival rates of mixed HCC-CC were similar to those of HCC after liver transplantation (LT) and liver resection. In this paper, we report that LT in patients with mixed HCC-CC achieves outcomes which are similar to those seen in LT for HCC. Therefore, the diagnosis of mixed HCC-CC should not be considered as a contraindication for LT.
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Liver transplantation for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) within the Milan criteria
generally yields a 4-year overall survival rate of 75% and 4-year recurrence free survival rate of 83%.
But, many HCC patients present with the disease beyond the Milan criteria. On the other hands, the
overall survival of patients with advanced HCC with portal vein invasion is very poor. We report a
case of successful living donor liver transplantation for advanced HCC with portal vein invasion by
down-staging through radioembolization, hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, and stereotactic
body radiation therapy.
The management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is decided according to the evidence
base recommendations generated by international societies especially by Barcelona clinical
liver cancer (BCLC) guideline. However, the BCLC guideline based on studies of the Western
countries, has not been well matched to real life cohort in Korea. In Western countries,
a deceased donor liver transplantation has been well allocated to the HCC patients with
preserved liver function. Patients with mild to moderate portal hypertension and certain
BCLC B patients could be eligible for hepatic resection if a chance for 50% survival rate at 5
years is perceived. If liver transplantation (LT) is back up for liver resection in those patients
as a salvage therapy, widening indication of liver resection could be much easily acceptable.
On the other hands, new selection criteria of HCC beyond Milan criteria considering tumor
biology, has been provided in the field of LT resulting in more than 50% survival rate at 5
years. Herein, surgical perspectives beyond the BCLC recommendation for LT for HCC would
be reviewed in the respect of Korean surgeon’s view in this article.
Malignant portal vein thrombosis is a contraindication to liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma because of the high
risk of its recurrence and the poor patient survival. With a newly developed immunosuppressant and a chemotherapeutic agent,
however, living donor liver transplantation can be considered for a patient of hepatocellular carcinoma, showing a slow growth
rate and good response for transarterial chemoembolization. We report a HBV related liver cirrhosis patient with HCC and portal
vein tumor thrombus who underwent living donor liver transplantation and survived without recurrence of hepatocellular
carcinoma for 18 months in our center.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of cancer mortality worldwide, especially in Asian countriesas well as
Korea, and liver transplantation (LT) has potentials to improve survival for patients with HCC. However, major hamper to LT for
HCC has been graft shortage. To solve this problem, liver resection (LR) has to be rejuvenated in the general algorithm of HCC
treatment in the light of salvage transplantation (ST) strategies. The LR followed by ST in case of HCC recurrence is an attractive
concept in early stage HCC and cirrhosis with acceptable liver function. These challenges in technique, indications, pre-LT
observation and treatments for recurred HCC, and prioritization policies of patients on the waiting list have to be precise through
prospective investigations that have to include individualization of prognosis, biological variables and pathology surrogates as
stratification criteria. Accepting this challenges have been part of the history of LT and will endure for the future. This article will
focus on the ST after LR in terms of intention-to-analysis
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) usually appears in the setting of underlying liver disease. Therefore, HCC should be
managed in multidisciplinary settings. Under these circumstances, several practice guidelines were introduced around the world.
Clinically useful practice guidelines should be based on evidences, but socio-economic and medical status of the country should
be considered as well. In this review, 6 well-known global practical guidelines (BCLC-AASLD, NCCN, 2 from Japan, APASL,
Korean) were compared in terms of resection and liver transplantation (LT). BCLC-AASLD from Europe and the United States
stressed more on LT for the patients within Milan criteria. However, the guidelines from the Asia had more extended indication
of liver resection. The number of living donor LT in Korea is the highest in the world. Under this circumstance, indication of LT
for HCC in Korea is inevitably being expanded. Compared to other guidelines, therefore, Korean guideline allowed a limited
expansion of indication for HCC into patients with Child A and/or living donor LT with outside Milan HCC. However, to make
more practical guidelines, high quality evidence from Korea and validation study of current Korean guideline are needed.
A case of multiple hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) which was performed a living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) after
down-staging by transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is reviewed. Generally, the recommended therapeutic
strategy for this kind of HCC is TACE. However, the response of multiple HCC of this 48 year-old male patient was relatively
good after 4 times of TACE, and we performed LDLT on the concept of clinical trial under the informed consent of patient and
his families. Although there were two times recurrences in the liver and lung, he has overcome them and is still alive 66 months
after LDLT. We suggest that liver transplantation could be an alternative strategy in the multiple HCC cases who show good
responses after TACE.
The effort we are trying to set up the treatment guideline for hepatocellular carcinoma has produced various guidelines after
drawing a conclusion from Barcelona EASL meeting in 2000. Especially in Korea, the Korean Liver Cancer Study Group
and the National Cancer Center have collaborated on making treatment guideline for hepatocellular carcinoma in the early
stage of setting up the guideline, 2003, and it was a great help to treatment, study and education. However, a need of
revision had been raised due to many changes in the latest treatments and an accumulation of international and domestic
experience. After the proposal of amending the treatment guideline for Hepatocellular carcinoma in the Cancer Control Forum
of the National Cancer Control Planning Board on October 17th, 2008, “2009 Guideline” has been reported in the Conference
of the Korean Liver Cancer Study Group held on June 27th, 2009. When revising the guideline, there are some suggestions
of continuous modification to reflect evidence based medical knowledge, and recently there are some debates about the drawback
of the surgical field which was not handled in EASL and AASLD Guidelines. Therefore, it will broaden your understanding
of liver surgical resection and liver transplantation and it will also be a place for the discussion of disputable issues.
Hyun Young Woo, Jin Dong Kim, Jung Hyun Kwon, Si Hyun Bae, Jong Young Choi, Seung Kew Yoon, Sung Eun Rha, Jae Young Byun, Ho Jong Chun, Byung Gil Choi, Hae Kyu Lee, Young Kyoung You, Dong Gu Kim
Journal of the Korean Liver Cancer Study Group. 2009;9(1):45-48. Published online June 30, 2009
Liver transplantation is curative therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma especially if ,within Milan criteria, 4 year survival
and recurrence-free survival was reported to be 85% and 92%, respectively. Herein we report a patient who experience rapid
recurrence following living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) for hepatocellular carcinoma within Milan criteria. A 52
year-old-men patient with known liver cirrhosis associated with hepatitis B virus was admitted for the treatment of
hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Abdominal CT revealed two nodules less than 3 cm in right hepatic lobe. After single
session of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), the patient underwent LDLT. After seven months following
transplantation, recurrent HCC was detected on transplanted liver with concurrent metastatic nodule in lung. Although TACE
and metastsectomy were performed for recurrent intrahepatic mass and lung metastasis, recurrent HCC showed rapid
progression and patient died of progressive tumor after 10 months following LDLT.
Liver transplantation is the prime management for early hepatocellular carcinoma with liver cirrhosis that is not
candidate for surgical resection. Milan criteria, single tumor less than 5 cm or less than three tumors with less
than 3 cm, is accepted as an indication for liver transplantation. The extended criteria do not show reliable result
in long-term recurrent-free survival rate. Shortage of donor and following high drop-out rate during waiting time
are main obstacle to liver transplantation, which can be alleviated by the living donor liver transplantation and
priority policies in deceased donor liver allocation. The pre-operative loco-regional therapy, such as transarterial
chemoembolization (TACE), radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and regional surgical resection, decreases the drop-out
rate for waiting time and supplies time for preparing the liver transplantation. Generally acceptable recurrence rate
after liver transplantation is less than 15%. The size of mass, vascular or lymphatic-invasion, low grade tumor
and high pre-operative level of alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) are risk factors for recurrence. The prognosis of recurred
hepatocellular carcinoma is fatal. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy after liver transplantation cannot prolong the patient
survival rate and decrease the recurrence rate. Above 50% of recurrence-free patient survival rate at
post-transplant 5 years is reliable result after liver transplantation in hepatocellular carcinoma. The survival rate
is improved after mid-1990, and is reported as 60-70% at post-transplant 5 years. The living donor liver
transplantation shows more superior survival rate than deceased donor liver transplantation.