Three Treatment Methods via the Hepatic Artery for Hepatocellular Carcinoma - A Retrospective Study

Background: To evaluate the relative effectiveness of different treatments of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) via the hepatic artery. Materials and
Methods: The study sample group consisted of 418 patients whowere randomly selected from 2008 to 2012 with a first diagnosis of HCC and treated with transcatheter arterialchemoembolization (TACE) or without (TAE) chemotherapy or transcatheter arterial infusion (TAI). Wecollected data including tumor size preoperative and one month thereafter to compare change in areas acrossthe three groups, along with various laboratory indexes for comparison.
Results: The overall average change ofareas was 240.8±72.1 mm2. In the three groups it was 265.0±58.0 mm2 vs. 250.5±51.9 mm2 vs. 123.7±26.2 mm2. Ingroups TACE and TAE values were larger than in group TAI (p<0.01), but the difference between the two wasnot statistically significant (p= 0.191). Additionally, U/L change of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanineaminotransferase (ALT) in groups TACE and TAE was greater than in the TAI cases (24.0±13.5 vs. 20.9±12.1 vs.5.47±8.20 and 25.6±13.5 vs.23.2±12.28 vs.5.48±14.3) on the preoperative day and two days thereafter (p<0.01).Between the two groups there was no significant cariation (p= 0.320 and p= 0.609). However, the AST and ALTrecovered to normal levels one month later on therapy with liver protecting drugs.
Conclusion: The groupsTACE and TAE demonstrated more effective reduction of tumor size than group TAI. While lipiodol causedacute liver function damage, this proved reversible.