Surgical outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with biliary tumor thrombi

BACKGROUND: To investigate the surgical outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with biliary tumor thrombi (BTT). METHODS: Surgical outcome of 27 HCC patients with BTT (group I) were compared with randomly selected HCC patients without BTT (group II; n = 270). RESULTS: One patient in group I died of hepatic failure within 30 days after resection. The 1-, 3- and 5-year cumulative survival rates of group I were 70.3%, 25.9%, and 7.4%, respectively; these were significantly lower than those of group II (90.6%, 54.0%, and 37.7%) (P <0.001). The rates of early recurrence (≤ 1 year) after resection were significantly higher in group I than group II (70.3% vs. 34.8%) (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: HCC patients with BTT had a worse prognosis after resection than those without BTT. Resection should be considered for these tumors given the lack of effective alternative therapies.