Novel Aspects in the Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the commonest cancers in Thailand, which usually develops on a background of cirrhosis. We report a multimodal approach to the management of HCC. Though surgical treatment is the only opportunity for curing HCC, it is only feasible in a minority of patients. Various non-surgical treatment modalities have been developed and used extensively, but their efficacy is far from satisfactory and the prospect for the development of more effective treatments is dismal. Multidisciplinary treatment such as the combination of transcatheter oily chemoembolization and percutaneous ethanol injection appears to be the current trend of management for nonresectable HCC, and improvement in survival can be achieved compared to single mode treatment. Portal vein embolization is useful in patient in need of wide hepatectomy to induce pre-operative hypertrophy of future remnant liver, which would have been insufficient for safe resection. Moreover, intra-arterial 131-Iodine-Lipiodol given after curative resection significantly decreased the rate of recurrence and increased disease-free and overall survival in patients with HCC.