Abstract

Fifty-four patients underwent total hepatectomy and liver replacement in the presence of a primary liver malignancy. In 13 recipients in whom the hepatic tumors were incidental to some other endstage liver disease, recurrence was not seen and 12 of the 13 patients are alive after 4 months to 15 1/2 years. In contrast, tumors recurred in 3 of every 4 patients who received liver replacement primarily because of hepatic malignancies that could not be resected by conventional techniques of subtotal hepatectomy and who lived for at least 2 months after transplantation. The most encouraging results were in patients with the fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinomas that grow slowly and metastasize late, but even with this lesion, the recurrence rate was 57%. In future trials, additional effective anticancer therapy will be needed to improve the results of liver transplantation for primary liver malignancy, but what an improved strategy should be has not yet been defined.

Keywords

MedicineTransplantationLiver transplantationCancerSurgeryInternal medicine

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Publication Info

Year
1985
Type
article
Volume
202
Issue
4
Pages
401-407
Citations
501
Access
Closed

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Shunzaburo Iwatsuki, Robert D. Gordon, Byers W. Shaw et al. (1985). Role of Liver Transplantation in Cancer Therapy. Annals of Surgery , 202 (4) , 401-407. https://doi.org/10.1097/00000658-198510000-00001

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DOI
10.1097/00000658-198510000-00001