Impact of marital status on overall survival in patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma

The purpose of the present research was to assess the prognostic impact of marital status in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with tumors ≤ 2 cm (stage Ia) based on the data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Patients who received a histopathologic HCC diagnosis between 2004 and 2016 were recruited. Overall survival (OS) was the major outcome measure. The Cox regression model and the Fine-Gray regression model were used for the purpose of comparing and examining the prognostic value of marital status for OS. The data for a total of 2446 stage Ia HCC patients were extracted from the database. The median overall survival time was 96.0 months, with 5-year and 10-year overall survival rates of 58.2% and 45.8%, respectively. In both the Fine-Gray regression model and Cox regression model, marital status [married vs. unmarried and others, both P