Effect of Perioperative Blood Transfusion on the Postoperative Prognosis of Ruptured Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients With Different BCLC Stages: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis

One of the key strategies to improve the prognosis of HCC, beside prevention, is to diagnose the tumor in early stages, when the patient is asymptomatic and the liver function is preserved, because in this clinical situation effective therapies with survival benefit can be applied. Imaging techniques are a key tool in the surveillance and diagnosis of HCC. Screening should be based in US every 6 months and non-invasive diagnostic criteria of HCC based on imaging findings on dynamic-MR and/or dynamic-CT have been validated and thus, accepted in clinical guidelines. The typical vascular pattern depicted by HCC on CT and or MRI consists on arterial enhancement, stronger than the surrounding liver (wash-in), and hypodensity or hyposignal intensity compared to the surrounding liver (wash-out) in the venous phase. This has a sensitivity of around 60% with a 96-100% specificity. Major improvements on liver imaging have been introduced in the latest years, adding functional information that can be quantified: the use of hepatobiliary contrast media for liver MRI, the inclusion of diffusion-weighted sequences in the standard protocols for liver MRI studies and new radiotracers for positron-emission tomography (PET). However, all them are still a matter of research prior to be incorporated in evidence based clinical decision making. This review summarizes the current knowledge about imaging techniques for the early diagnosis and staging of HCC, and it discusses the most relevant open questions.

To determine if the degree of blood loss during resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is predictive of recurrence and long-term survival. Several studies have addressed the impact of blood transfusion on survival and recurrence after liver resection for HCC. However, the independent effect of intraoperative estimated blood loss (EBL) on oncologic outcome is unclear. From our prospective database, we identified 192 patients who had a partial hepatectomy for HCC from 1985 to 2002. Clinicopathologic predictors of EBL were identified using logistic regression. Overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and recurrence free survival (RFS) were assessed using the Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression methods. The median patient age was 64 (range, 19-86) and 66% were men. All patients had histologically proven HCC. The median follow-up time was 34 months (range, 1-297). Factors associated with increased EBL on multivariate analysis were male gender, vascular invasion, extent of hepatectomy, and operative time (P < 0.01). EBL and vascular invasion were independent predictors of OS and DSS. Only EBL was significantly associated with RFS on multivariate analysis (P = 0.02). Additionally, we found a significant inverse correlation between increasing levels of EBL and length of DSS (P = 0.01). The magnitude of EBL during HCC resection is related to biologic characteristics of the tumor as well as the extent of surgery. Increased intraoperative blood loss during HCC resection is an independent prognostic factor for tumor recurrence and death.