Surgical therapy and survival in young patients with stage I–II hepatocellular carcinoma: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is regarded as a high-mortality cancer, but the effectiveness of surgical strategies for young patients with early-stage HCC remains controversial. We aimed to analyze the survival in young patients with stage I-II HCC who underwent different kinds of surgical treatments. Methods: Overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were compared among patients aged 18-45 years with stage I-II HCC from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (2004-2013) who underwent local tumor destruction (LTD), wedge or segmental resection (WSR), lobectomy resection (LR), liver transplantation (LT), or non-surgery. Univariate and multivariate analyses and Kaplan-Meier method were used to examine the OS and CSS of the patients. A stratification analysis of CSS was also conducted among the subgroups.Results: Data from 664 patients were extracted. The median survival time was 46 months. In the multivariate analysis of OS, compared with non-surgery, LTD [hazard ratio (HR), 0.37; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.25-0.54; P<0.0001], LR (HR, 0.29; 95% CI: 0.19-0.45; P<0.0001), and WSR (HR, 0.26; 95% CI: 0.17-0.39; P<0.0001) had better outcomes, and LT had the best survival benefit (HR, 0.24; 95% CI: 0.16-0.36; P<0.0001), which was similar to CSS. In the stratification analysis, compared with the nonsurgery group, among patients with chemotherapy, LT reduced the risk of CSS by 64% (HR, 0.36; 95% CI: 0.19-0.66; P interaction=0.0004).Conclusions: Surgery offers a survival benefit compared with non-surgery for young patients with stage I-II HCC. LT is associated with better survival than WSR, LR, and LTD.