Postoperative adjuvant TACE efficacy in HCC depends on micronecrosis state

Key clinical point: Postoperative adjuvant transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) offers a favorable prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with micronecrosis but limited efficacy against HCC without micronecrosis.

Major finding: Adjuvant TACE significantly improved the overall survival (OS; P  =  .004) and disease-free survival (DFS; P  =  .034) of patients with micronecrosis but led to a nonsignificant difference in the OS (P  =  .430) and DFS (P  =  .131) of patients without micronecrosis.

Study details: This retrospective study propensity score-matched patients who underwent curative liver resection for HCC with (n = 328) or without (n = 438) micronecrosis, with each group comprising patients who did or did not (1:1) receive adjuvant TACE after liver resection.

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Disclosures: This study was supported by the National Key Research & Development Program of China and others. No information on conflicts of interest was available.

Source: Wang Y, Ge H, Hu M, et al. Histological tumor micronecrosis in resected specimens after R0 hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinomas is a factor in determining adjuvant TACE: A retrospective propensity score-matched study. Int J Surg. 2022;105:106852 (Aug 24). Doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2022.106852.