Clinical and radiologic assessments of the results of hepatectomy for small hepatocellular carcinoma and therapeutic arterial embolization for postoperative recurrence.

To study the prognostic significance of the state of the residual liver after hepatectomy for small hepatocellular carcinoma (s-HCC) no larger than 5 cm in diameter, 123 patients were followed for periods from 9 months to 9 years and 1 month. The following results were obtained: (1) recurrence occurred in the residual liver in 58 patients (54.2%) after an average of 14.9 months from hepatectomy; (2) at recurrence diagnosed by imaging, 12 of 48 recurrent patients showed negative alpha-fetoprotein; (3) computed tomography (CT) had a high sensitivity (71.4%) in detecting recurrence; (4) 5-year survivals for all patients (n = 123) who had hepatectomy, and for those without recurrence (n = 49) or with recurrence (n = 58) were 19.1%, 48.9%, and 11.0%, respectively; and (5) survivals for the patients who developed recurrence and who did and did not receive embolization treatment (n = 32, 23, respectively) were 70.3% and 37.1% at 1 year, 45.0% and 0% at 3 years, and 14.9% and 0% at 5 years, respectively. It is important to recognize that the patient who has undergone surgery even for s-HCC should be followed as a super high-risk patient at regular intervals using CT. Therapeutic embolization for recurrent patients improved the survival after recurrence.