Key clinical point: When technically feasible, surgical liver resection (LR) should be recommended to patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with bile duct tumor thrombus (BDTT) over transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) because it provides better prognosis.
Major finding: After propensity score matching, patients who underwent LR vs. TACE showed a significantly longer median overall survival (20.0 vs. 11.0 months; P < .001) and disease-free survival (7.0 vs. 2.0 months; P = .007).
Study details: Findings are from a retrospective study including 145 patients with HCC with BDTT who underwent LR (n = 105) or TACE (n = 40).
Disclosures: The study was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Liu Z-H et al. Prognostic comparison between liver resection and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma patients with bile duct tumor thrombus: A propensity-score matching analysis. Front Oncol. 2022;12:835559 (Mar 15). Doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.835559