title: Liver transplantation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: one center's experience.
abstract: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which worldwide is the fifth most common malignancy in men and the ninth most common malignancy in women, accounts for 6% of all malignant lesions. We evaluated our results of liver transplantation for patients with HCC. Between January 2004 and April 2007, 31 patients (5 females, 26 males; age range, 1.1-65 years) with preoperatively or incidentally diagnosed HCC underwent orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) at our center. Eleven grafts were from deceased donors, and 20 from living-related donors. Inclusion criteria were no invasion of a major vascular structure and no evidence of extrahepatic disease. In 17 patients, tumors exceeded the Milan criteria. According to the tumor-node-metastasis staging system, 6 patients had stage 1, 8 had stage II, 2 had stage III, and 15 had stage 4A carcinoma. Three complications occurred in 31 patients: hepatic arterial thrombosis in 1 patient and biliary leakage in 2. At a mean follow-up of 24.3 +/- 12.5 months, 29 patients are well with excellent graft function. Two patients died at 23 and 17 months after OLT respectively. The longest graft survival is 43 months. There have been 4 tumor recurrences, namely, at 4, 26, 24, and 29 months after OLT, respectively. Patient and disease-free survival rates are 93.5% and 90%, respectively. In conclusion, OLT provided long-term disease-free survival for patients with HCC, even those with locally advanced tumors who had no effective alternative treatment than transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Başkent University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Karakayali
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sevmis
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moray
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Yilmaz
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ozcay
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Savas
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arslan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haberal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis