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      Early Detection, Curative Treatment, and Survival Rates for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Surveillance in Patients with Cirrhosis: A Meta-analysis

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      PLoS Medicine
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          Abstract

          Amit Singal and colleagues conducted a systematic review of the evidence that surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with cirrhosis improves early detection, receipt of curative treatment, and overall survival.

          Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary

          Abstract

          Background

          Surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has level I evidence among patients with hepatitis B but only level II evidence in patients with cirrhosis. This lack of randomized data has spurred questions regarding the utility of HCC surveillance in this patient population; however, lack of randomized data does not equate to a lack of data supporting the efficacy of surveillance. The aim of our study was to determine the effect of HCC surveillance on early stage tumor detection, receipt of curative therapy, and overall survival in patients with cirrhosis.

          Methods and Findings

          We performed a systematic literature review using Medline from January 1990 through January 2014 and a search of national meeting abstracts from 2009–2012. Two investigators identified studies that reported rates of early stage tumor detection, curative treatment receipt, or survival, stratified by HCC surveillance status, among patients with cirrhosis. Both investigators independently extracted data on patient populations, study methods, and results using standardized forms. Pooled odds ratios, according to HCC surveillance status, were calculated for each outcome using the DerSimonian and Laird method for a random effects model.

          We identified 47 studies with 15,158 patients, of whom 6,284 (41.4%) had HCC detected by surveillance. HCC surveillance was associated with improved early stage detection (odds ratio [OR] 2.08, 95% CI 1.80–2.37) and curative treatment rates (OR 2.24, 95% CI 1.99–2.52). HCC surveillance was associated with significantly prolonged survival (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.67–2.17), which remained significant in the subset of studies adjusting for lead-time bias. Limitations of current data included many studies having insufficient duration of follow-up to assess survival and the majority not adjusting for liver function or lead-time bias.

          Conclusions

          HCC surveillance is associated with significant improvements in early tumor detection, receipt of curative therapy, and overall survival in patients with cirrhosis.

          Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary

          Editors' Summary

          Background

          Hepatocellular cancer (HCC) is the commonest form of primary liver cancer—a type of cancer that starts when a cell in the liver acquires genetic changes that allow it to grow uncontrollably. Primary liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, killing more than 600,000 people every year. The symptoms of HCC are vague and rarely appear until the cancer has spread throughout the liver. They include unexplained weight loss, feeling sick, tiredness, and jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes). If liver cancer is diagnosed in its early stages, it can be treated by surgically removing part of the liver, by liver transplantation, or by a procedure called radiofrequency ablation in which an electric current is used to destroy the cancer cells. However, most people are diagnosed with HCC when the cancer is advanced and cannot be treated. These individuals are given palliative treatment to relieve pain and discomfort. Although most patients who are diagnosed with HCC at an early stage survive more than 5 years, patients with more advanced HCC have an average survival less than one year. The exact cause of HCC is unknown, but it is thought to be related to cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver. This condition is the end result of long-term (chronic) liver damage caused by, for example, alcohol abuse or infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV).

          Why Was This Study Done?

          Because HCC tends to be untreatable when it is diagnosed at a late stage, if the tumor can be found early by regularly measuring blood levels of alpha fetoprotein (a liver cancer biomarker) and using ultrasound, outcomes for patients at high risk of developing HCC might be improved. Indeed, American and European guidelines recommend HCC surveillance with ultrasound every 6 months in patients with HBV infection and/or cirrhosis. However, although randomized controlled trial results support HCC surveillance among patients infected with HBV, no randomized trials have investigated its use among patients with cirrhosis. Here, the researchers use predefined criteria to identify all the published cohort and case-control studies (two types of non-randomized studies) that have examined the impact of HCC surveillance on outcomes in patients with cirrhosis. They then pool the data from these studies using a statistical approach called meta-analysis to estimate whether HCC surveillance is associated with improvements in early tumor detection, curative treatment receipt, and survival rates among patients with cirrhosis.

          What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

          The researchers identified 47 studies that examined the association of HCC surveillance with outcomes in 15,158 patients with cirrhosis who developed HCC. In 41.4% of these patients, HCC was detected by surveillance. Among patients who had undergone HCC surveillance, the pooled rate of early detection was 70.9%, whereas among patients who had not undergone surveillance but who were diagnosed incidentally or who presented with symptoms, the pooled rate of early detection was 29.9%. The researchers calculated that the pooled odds (chances) of early detection among patients undergoing surveillance compared to early detection among patients not undergoing surveillance was 2.08 (an odds ratio [OR] of 2.08). The pooled rate of curative treatment receipt among patients undergoing surveillance was 51.3% compared to only 23.8% among patients not undergoing surveillance (OR 2.24). Finally, among those patients for whom the relevant data were available, 50.8% of patients who had undergone HCC surveillance but only 28.2% of those who had not undergone surveillance survived for at least 3 years after diagnosis (OR 1.90).

          What Do These Findings Mean?

          These findings show that HCC surveillance is associated with significant improvements (improvements that are unlikely to have happened by chance) in early tumor detection, receipt of curative treatment, and overall survival among patients with cirrhosis. Importantly, the association with improved overall survival remained significant after adjusting for the possibility that patients who underwent surveillance died at the same time as they would have done without surveillance but appeared to survive longer because they were diagnosed earlier (this is called adjustment for lead-time bias). These results must be interpreted cautiously, however, because many of the studies included in the meta-analysis had insufficient follow-up to assess survival adequately, not all the studies adjusted for lead-time bias, and none of the studies assessed potential downstream harms of HCC surveillance such as complications of liver biopsies. Nevertheless, overall, these findings provide sufficient evidence to support guidelines that recommend regular HCC surveillance for patients with cirrhosis.

          Additional Information

          Please access these websites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001624.

          Related collections

          Most cited references64

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          Clinical management of hepatocellular carcinoma. Conclusions of the Barcelona-2000 EASL conference. European Association for the Study of the Liver.

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            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
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            Randomized controlled trial of screening for hepatocellular carcinoma.

            Screening for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been conducted for over 20 years, but there is no conclusive evidence that screening may reduce HCC mortality. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of screening on HCC mortality in people at increased risk. This study included 18,816 people, aged 35-59 years with hepatitis B virus infection or a history of chronic hepatitis in urban Shanghai, China. Participants were randomly allocated to a screening (9,373) or control (9,443) group. Controls received no screening and continued to use health-care facilities. Screening group participants were invited to have an AFP test and ultrasonography examination every 6 months. Screening was stopped in December 1997; by that time screening group participants had been offered five to ten times. All participants were followed up until December 1998. The primary outcome measure was HCC mortality. The screened group completed 58.2 percent of the screening offered. When the screening group was compared to the control group, the number of HCC was 86 versus 67; subclinical HCC being 52 (60.5%) versus 0; small HCC 39 (45.3%) versus 0; resection achieved 40 (46.5%) versus 5 (7.5%); 1-, 3,-, and 5-year survival rate 65.9%, 52.6%, 46.4% versus 31.2%, 7.2%, 0, respectively. Thirty-two people died from HCC in the screened group versus 54 in the control group, and the HCC mortality rate was significantly lower in the screened group than in controls, being 83.2/100,000 and 131.5/100,000, respectively, with a mortality rate ratio of 0.63 (95%CI 0.41-0.98). Our finding indicated that biannual screening reduced HCC mortality by 37%.
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              • Article: not found

              Natural history of untreated nonsurgical hepatocellular carcinoma: rationale for the design and evaluation of therapeutic trials.

              This study analyzed the natural history and prognostic factors of patients with nonsurgical hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Twenty variables from 102 cirrhotic patients with HCC who were not treated within prospective randomized controlled trials (RCT) were investigated through uni- and multivariate analyses. None of them was suitable for radical therapies (surgical resection, liver transplantation, or ethanol injection) or presented end-stage disease as reflected by an Okuda stage 3 or a Performance Status >/=3. Sixty-five patients were Child-Pugh A, 34 were B, and 3 were C. Most of them exhibited a preserved Performance Status Test (PST) (0 = 56; 1 = 38; 2 = 8). Tumor was solitary in 26 (
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                PLoS Med
                PLoS Med
                PLoS
                plosmed
                PLoS Medicine
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1549-1277
                1549-1676
                April 2014
                1 April 2014
                : 11
                : 4
                : e1001624
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America
                [2 ]Department of Clinical Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, United States of America
                [3 ]Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America
                [4 ]Department of Internal Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
                University of Oxford, United Kingdom
                Author notes

                The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: AS. Performed the experiments: AS AP. Analyzed the data: AS JT. Contributed analysis tools: AS AP JT. Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: AS. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: AS AP JT. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: AS AP JT. Agree with manuscript results and conclusions: AS AP JT.

                Article
                PMEDICINE-D-13-02996
                10.1371/journal.pmed.1001624
                3972088
                24691105
                46b6cf20-0a7a-4796-876e-cefb406d41ec
                Copyright @ 2014

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 16 September 2013
                : 21 February 2014
                Page count
                Pages: 20
                Funding
                This work was conducted with support from UT-STAR, NIH/NCATS Grant Number KL2 TR000453, NIH/NCATS Grant UL1-TR000451, and the ACG Junior Faculty Development Award awarded to AS. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of UT-STAR, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and its affiliated academic and health care centers, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, or the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Gastroenterology and Hepatology
                Liver Diseases
                Cirrhosis
                Hepatocellular Carcinoma
                Oncology
                Cancer Detection and Diagnosis
                Cancer Screening

                Medicine
                Medicine

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