Precision hepatectomy assures safety and good therapeutic outcomes in treatment of primary liver cancer

Primary liver cancer refers to malignant tumors occurring in hepatocytes or intrahepatic bile duct cells, and is one of the most common malignancies in clinical practice, ranking fifth in incidence among malignancies worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

Precision hepatectomy shortens primary liver cancer patients' operative time, hospital stay, and anal venting time. It reduces complications like intraoperative bleeding, mitigates damage to liver function and has less impact on immune function.

The procedure can improve prognosis, and recovery and reduce recurrence and mortality rates, Says Dr Junhong Zhang in his study "Safety and efficacy of precision hepatectomy in the treatment of primary liver cancer", published in BMC Surgery.

In the present study, researchers investigated the safety and efficacy of precision hepatectomy in treating primary liver cancer.The researchers analyzed 98 patients with a history of primary liver cancer who were hospitalized from February 2020 to February 2021.

There were two groups: Conventional hepatectomy, or the control group, and precision hepatectomy or the study group. They counted surgical conditions, complications and follow-up results of the two groups and counted liver function and immune function observed before and one week after surgery.

The key results of the study are:

• Compared to the control group, there was less operation time, intraoperative bleeding, hospitalization time and anal venting time in the study group.
• One week after surgery, AST, TBiL, ALT and ALB levels decreased within the study group significantly higher than those in the control group.
• The study group had higher levels of CD4+, CD3 + and CD4+/CD8 +.
• The study group had fewer complications than the controls, with lowered mortality and recurrence rates after two years of follow-up.
• When comparing the rate of metastasis between the groups, the difference was not statistically significant.

They said Precision hepatectomy can effectively treat primary liver cancer. It also assures high safety levels and could be promoted in clinical practice.

They said further research is warranted on how to make 3D reconstruction techniques better for use in surgery.

Further reading:

https://bmcsurg.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12893-023-02148-7