Palliative chemotherapy for patients with recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma after liver transplantation.
OBJECTIVE
The majority of patients with post-transplantation recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have extrahepatic metastases and multifocal lesions. Therefore, they have few treatment options and may not be amenable for local therapy. The safety and efficacy of palliative chemotherapy in this population has not been reported.


METHODS
We retrospectively analyzed 24 patients who received palliative chemotherapy for recurrent HCC after liver transplantation between January 2000 and December 2006 at the Seoul National University Hospital.


RESULTS
The mean age of patients was 55 years (range 42-70 years). The most commonly used chemotherapeutic regimens were 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)/cisplatin (n = 9), which was followed by capecitabine/cisplatin (n = 4), 5-FU/mitomycin (n = 3), 5-FU/oxaliplatin (n = 1), S-1 (n = 1), capecitabine (n = 1), gemcitabine/oxaliplatin (n = 1), gemcitabine/cisplatin (n = 1), 5-FU/interferon (n = 1) and sorafenib (n = 2). The Grade 3/4 hematological toxicity was neutropenia (29.1%), thrombocytopenia (20.9%) and anemia (20.9%). There were no cases of neutropenic fever or bleeding events. The Grade 3/4 non-hematological toxicity included elevation of liver transaminase (8.4%) and jaundice (16.7%). No patient showed an objective response and four patients (16.7%) demonstrated stable disease. The median time to progression was 7.0 weeks (95% CI 5.8-8.2) and the median overall survival was 16.6 weeks (95% CI 10.1-23.1).


CONCLUSIONS
Palliative chemotherapy can be delivered to patients with recurrent HCC after liver transplantation with tolerable toxicity. However, the efficacy to date is not satisfactory. Therefore, more effective systemic chemotherapy is needed for this group of patients.
Lee
Jeong-Ok
JO
Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
Kim
Dae-Young
DY
Lim
Joo Han
JH
Seo
Myung-Deok
MD
Yi
Hyeon Gyu
HG
Oh
Do-Youn
DY
Im
Seock-Ah
SA
Kim
Tae-You
TY
Bang
Yung-Jue
YJ
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D010166:Palliative Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D017211:Treatment Failure; D016896:Treatment Outcome