Archive | 2021
Circulating Tumor Cell is a Clinical Indicator of Pretransplant Radiofrequency Ablation for Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Abstract
\n Introduction:\n\nIt is of great significance to confirm reliable indicators for the guidance of pretransplant radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we aim to investigate whether circulating tumor cell (CTC) status is clinical indicator for RFA before liver transplantation (LT) in HCC patients.\nMethod:\n\n79 HCC patients with pretransplant CTC analysis were enrolled in this retrospective study. Clinical outcomes including recurrence and survival were compared and analyzed between patients with and without pretransplant RFA.\nResult\n\nForty-two patients were detected as CTC- positive and 18 patients received pretransplant RFA. Recurrence was correlated with CTC count (P\u2009=\u20090.024), tumor number (P\u2009=\u20090.035), liver cirrhosis (P\u2009=\u20090.001), Milan criteria (P\u2009=\u20090.003) and University of California San Francisco (UCSF) criteria (P\u2009=\u20090.001). Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with CTC-positive had higher recurrence rate (P\u2009=\u20090.0257). For CTC-positive patients, the recurrence rate of pretransplant RFA group were significantly lower than non- pretransplant RFA group (0 vs. 46.7%, P\u2009=\u20090.0236). For CTC-negative patients, both recurrence rate and OS rate were similar and without significantly differences. In multivariate analysis, pretransplant RFA was the independent factor for recurrence (P\u2009=\u20090.025).\nConclusion\n\nPretransplant CTC status can guide the administration of pretransplant RFA in HCC patients which can reduce recurrence in CTC-positive HCC patients.