Liver resection for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with direct removal of tumor thrombi in the main portal vein.

Since the tumor thrombus in the main portal vein appears in the terminal stage of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), any attempt to remove it surgically is thought to be impractical as the malignancy itself cannot be entirely removed. During the past 5 years, we have performed tumor thrombectomy combined with hepatectomy in 29 of 298 patients with HCC. This combined therapy was initially decided upon as an emergency measure to prevent impending rupture of esophageal varices, rather than to improve patient survival. Since portal flow was obtained after removal of thrombi, this condition enabled transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) and/or percutaneous ethanol injection therapy (PEIT). Although improved patient survival was not the primary goal of the emergency operation and there was an operative mortality of 11%, half of the other patients in the present series had unexpectedly high survival rates of 1 year (52.2%), 2 years (23.2%), and 3 years (11.6%), which were significantly higher than in patients not undergoing operation (n = 22).