Nonsurgical Multidisciplinary Approach for Recurrent Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Surgical Resection

SUMMARY 

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is characterized by frequent recurrence, even after curative resection and local ablation, and this represents a major challenge for HCC treatment. Although several treatment guidelines have been reported, they detail initial treatment choices and there are no established guidelines for recurrent HCC. The current treatment options for recurrent HCC do not differ from the primary treatments, but the unique characteristics of HCC recurrence should be considered when choosing treatments and each treatment should be individualized to different clinical situations. Furthermore, combinations of various treatments have been recently attempted. This review summarizes the current evidence for nonsurgical treatments of recurrent HCC after resection and suggests a multidisciplinary approach to improving the prognosis of recurrent HCC.

KEYWORDS :

• drug-eluting bead transarterial chemoembolization
• hepatocellular carcinoma
• multidisciplinary approach
• radiation therapy
• radiofrequency ablation
• re-resection
• salvage liver transplantation
• sorafenib
• transarterial chemoembolization
• transarterial radioembolization

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.