Predictive factors for the success of "one-off" ablation in single hepatocellular carcinoma patients who underwent percutaneous radiofrequency ablation

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the technique’s effectiveness and evaluate the risk factors affecting the success of “one-off” percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for single hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: A total of 462 consecutive patients who received RFA from February 2010 to December 2013 at a single center (Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China) were enrolled in the study. The patients were followed up for at least 6 months. Herein, this study adopted a new terminology named “one-off” ablation which is defined as achieving complete necrosis and no local residual or recurrent tumor within 6 months after single-session RFA. The incidence of “one-off” RFA was observed and the attributing risk factors were analyzed. A multivariate analysis was conducted to determine the independent predictive factors for the success of “one-off” ablation.

Results: The technique's effectiveness was 90.0% (416/462). After 6 months, 281 patients achieved "one-off" ablation, while 181 patients failed. On univariate analysis, tumor size ≤ 3 cm and tumor further from organs were found to be significantly correlated with "one-off" complete ablation (P = 0.003, and P = 0.010, respectively). On multivariate analysis using a logistic regression, tumor size ≤ 3 cm [odds ratio (OR), 0.534; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.346-0.825, P = 0.005] and tumor further from organs (OR, 0.593; 95% CI: 0.387-0.909, P = 0.017) remained predictive.

Conclusion: Tumor size and tumor location are the predictive factors for the success of “one-off” ablation in patients with single HCC.

Keywords

Hepatocellular carcinoma / radiofrequency ablation / tumor location / tumor size

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