Association between autologous transfusion and recurrence-free survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after resection: A prospective nonrandomized controlled trial.

e16206 Background: To investigate whether preoperative stored autologous transfusion has a significant effect on recurrence-free survival of patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Recurrence-free survival (RFS), overall survival, and perioperative morbidity were compared among patients with or without autologous transfusion at our medical center between January 2019 and December 2021. Patients who received autologous transfusion were matched based on propensity scores to patients who did not, in order to reduce confounding due to baseline differences. This study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02654028). Results: Of the 618 patients in the analysis, 399 (64.6%) received autologous transfusion and 219 (35.4%) did not receive autologous transfusion. By 30 July 2022, the median RFS time had been achieved. Patients with or without autologous transfusion had similar RFS before (hazard ratio 1.01, 95%CI 0.82-1.24) or after propensity score analysis (hazard ratio 1.04, 95%CI 0.82-1.31). However, the median overall survival was not achieved. Patients with or without autologous transfusion also had similar overall survival before (hazard ratio 1.15, 95%CI 0.84-1.56) or after propensity score analysis (hazard ratio 1.26, 95%CI 0.88-1.79). Moreover, subgroup analyses found that patients with or without autologous transfusion had similar RFS or overall survival among those with early, intermediate, or advanced stage disease. The two groups also had similar rates of perioperative mortality and morbidity. Conclusions: Preoperative stored autotransfusion had no significant effect on survival in patients with HCC who underwent liver resection. Clinical trial information: NCT02654028 .