Comparable and Complimentary Modalities for Treatment of Small-Sized HCC: Surgical Resection, Radiofrequency Ablation, and Microwave Ablation

Background: Over the past decade, there has been continual improvement in both ablative and surgical technologies for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The efficacy of ablative therapy compared to surgical resection for HCC has not been thoroughly evaluated using multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials. By international consensus, if a patient is eligible, surgery is the primary curative treatment option, as it is believed to confer superior oncologic control. Objective: to determine the efficacies of percutaneous ablative therapies and surgical resection (SR) in the treatment of HCC. Data sources, study appraisal, and synthesis methods: A meta-analysis using 5 online databases dating back to 1989 with more than 31,000 patients analyzing patient and tumor characteristics, median follow-up, overall survival, and complication rate was performed. Results: Ablative therapies are suitable alternatives to surgical resection in terms of survival and complication rates for comparable patient populations. For the entire length of the study from 1989–2019, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) produced the highest 5-year survival rates (59.6%), followed by microwave ablation (MWA) (50.7%) and surgical resection (SR) (49.9%). In the most recent era from 2006 to 2019, surgical resection has produced the highest 5-year survival rate of 72.8%, followed by RFA at 61.7% and MWA at 50.6%. Conclusions and key findings: Depending on the disease state and comorbidities of the patient, one modality may offer superior overall survival rates over the other available techniques. Interventional ablative methods and surgical resection should be used in conjunction for the successful treatment of small-sized HCC.