Clinical and Pathological Prognostic Factors after Hepatic Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Records of 108 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma treated by hepatic resection in our department from January 1970 to December 1988 were reviewed. Various clinical and pathological factors of the cases were evaluated by analysis of the cumulative survival rates to clarify the prognostic factors after hepatic resection. One-, 3-and 5-year cumulative survival rates in this series were 67, 30 and 27 per cent respectively. Factors affecting the outcome of the patients were clinical stage classification, macroscopic stage classification, tumor size, histological intrahepatic metastasis and histological portal vein involvement. A better outcome was revealed in the patients with the factors of clinical stage classification I, macroscopic stage classification I, tumor size less than 5 cm, no histological intrahepatic metastasis and no portal vein involvement in the resected specimen. However, factors such as sex, hepatitis B-antigen, serum AFP levels before the treatment, macroscopic tumor invasion to the resected cut stump, histological tumor invasion to the tumor capsule and preoperative transcatheter arterial embolization did not influence the outcome.