Comparative effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation with or without transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma.

The aim of this study is to compare the overall survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) versus RFA alone. All eligible studies were collected from the PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and the Embase electronic databases. The outcomes were overall survival rates. We used odds ratios to assess the strength of the association, and 95% confidence intervals give a sense of the precision of the estimate. Statistical analyses were performed by Review Manager 5.0 and Stata 11.0. A total of 19 available studies were considered in the present meta-analysis. When all groups were pooled, meta-analysis showed that RFA plus TACE significantly improved the survival rates of patients with HCC at 1, 3, and 5 years compared with RFA alone. The combination of RFA with TACE has advantages in improving overall survival rate, and provides better prognosis for HCC patients.