The short-term efficacy of no-touch radiofrequency ablation in treating cirrhosis-based small hepatocellular carcinoma

Yuelong Chai,
Kun Li,
Chang Zhang,
Shihan Chen and
Kuansheng MaEmail author

BMC Cancer201919:497

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-019-5707-0

Received: 24 December 2018
Accepted: 13 May 2019
Published: 27 May 2019

Open Peer Review reports

Abstract

Background

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for the treatment of small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a drawback of high recurrence rate. No-touch technique was developed to overcome it. However, it has barely been studied in Chinese populations. The aim of this study is to determine the safety and efficacy of no-touch RFA in the treatment of cirrhosis-based small HCC patients.

Methods

A total of 130 patients of small HCC in Southwest Hospital were enrolled in this study, 46 cases treated by no-touch RFA and 84 cases by conventional RFA. Treatment complications and tumor-free survival rate and overall survival rate were compared and analyzed.

Results

There were no significant differences in baseline confounding factors between the two groups. The ablation volume of no-touch RFA technique was significantly higher than conventional RFA (P = 0.002) but the remaining liver volume and treatment complications of the two techniques were the same (P = 0.702 and P = 0.269, respectively). Cox regression model revealed that conventional RFA was a predictive factor for short-term HCC recurrence (P = 0.041 for 2-year recurrence rate). Kaplan-Meier survival showed that tumor-free survival in no-touch group was significantly higher than conventional group (P = 0.047).