[A combination treatment of transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) and irradiation for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)--evaluation for therapeutic efficacy in comparison with TAE or irradiation alone].

Therapeutic effects of a combination therapy (TAE and irradiation) and a radiation therapy alone were evaluated comparatively in 54 patients with HCCs. Twenty eight patients of them underwent external X-irradiation with a linear accelerator after TAE and the remaining twenty six did irradiation alone. The incidence of partial response was 82.1% in the combination therapy and 69.2% in the radiation therapy. The cumulative rates of survival in the combination therapy were 70.8% (1-year), 37.1% (3-year), and 27.9% (5-year), which were higher than those in the radiation therapy. The cumulative rates of recurrence in the former were lower than those in the latter. The prognoses after the both treatments were poor in the patients with advanced liver cirrhosis (Child C). In the patients with HCCs smaller than 5 cm in diameter or accompanied by portal vein thrombi, the combination therapy was superior to TAE alone in the cumulative rates of survival. It is considered from the above results that the combination therapy is useful in the patients with HCCs when properly selected.