Objective: To evaluate postoperative transcatheter hepatic arterial chemoembolization (TACE) for improving the disease-free survival of HCC patients after hepatectomy.
Methods: 1 725 HCC patients were followed up after hepatectomy retrospectively. Of 1 457 patients who were followed-up completely, 209 had postoperative TACE. The 1 457 patients were divided into ten groups according to tumor thrombus, small HCC, capsular invasion, vascular invasion and cirrhosis. The disease-free survival was analyzed between subgroups of weather postoperative TACE was performed in every group. Software SAS 6.12 and EGRET package were used. Kaplan-Meier estimation was used to calculate the disease-free survival rates.
Results: There were no difference of the disease-free survival between the subgroups in no capsular invasion and in no hepatic cirrhosis groups.
Conclusion: Postoperative TACE is helpful in improving the disease-free survival of HCC patients after hepatectomy except those with integrated tumor envelope or no hepatocirrhosis. It is important to prolong the long-term results of operation.