Multimodal treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Our multimodal treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has brought about a significant improvement of the survival rate. It consists of a combination of hepatectomy and transcatheter arterial embolization using lipiodol (L-TAE). In order to facilitate L-TAE, we have developed a special catheter with notches. A group of patients with HCC (124 cases), excluding cases with absolutely non-curative resections and operative deaths, were treated between December 1980 and November 1986. Each case was treated for more than 1 year after hepatectomy. The patients were divided into two groups: A, patients with a single tumor not larger than 5 cm, and B, cases with larger tumors or more than one lesion. Some patients in each group were treated with L-TAE after hepatectomy. In group A, there was no significant difference in survival between treated and non-treated cases. In group B, L-TAE gave a significantly better survival than no postoperative treatment.