Surgery and Ablation Offer Comparable Outcomes for Small Liver Tumors: Study
Japanese researcher have found in a large study that surgery and radiofrequency ablation provide similar 5-year survival and recurrence-free survival rates for small liver tumors. Treatment choice should be based on individual patient and tumor characteristics.
They conducted a randomized controlled trial (SURF-RCT) to evaluate the efficacy of surgery versus radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Simultaneously, eligible patients who dissented from random assignment were enrolled in a nonrandomized prospective observational trial (SURF-Cohort). We aimed to report the final analyses of overall survival (OS) and updated recurrence-free survival (RFS) in the SURF-RCT and SURF-Cohort trials.
The trials were conducted in 49 institutions in Japan. Patients with a largest HCC diameter of ≤3 cm and ≤3 HCC nodules were eligible. The co-primary end points were RFS and OS. Results: During 2009-2015, 1,094 patients were registered. After excluding ineligible patients, 302 and 753 patients were included in the SURF-RCT (surgery, n = 150; RFA, n = 152) and SURF-Cohort trial (surgery, n = 382; RFA, n = 371), respectively. In the SURF-RCT trial, 90% of patients had solitary HCC, and approximately 65% had an HCC diameter of ≤2.0 cm. Serious adverse effects occurred in 3.3% of the surgery group and none in the RFA group.
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