Prevalence and clinical significance of regional lymphadenectomy in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND: A limited amount of literature involves the clinical significance of regional lymphadenectomy during operations on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Our study aims to explore regional lymphadenectomy rate and node‐positive rate, as well as their clinicopathological relevance and prognostic values in patients with HCC receiving liver resection (LR) and liver transplantation (LT). METHODS: Patients with HCC who received LR or LT and were diagnosed from 2004 to 2013 were retrieved from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. A total of 6367 patients with staging and regional lymphadenectomy information was included. RESULTS: The regional lymphadenectomy rates were 14.3% and 28.6% in patients receiving LR and LT, respectively. Additionally, the rate of LT patients increased from 21.3% to 33.3% in the 2004–2013 time period. In patients with regional lymphadenectomy, node‐positive rates were 8.4% and 0.9% in LR and LT patients, respectively. Regional lymphadenectomy was conducted relatively non‐specifically in patients receiving LT compared with those receiving LR by analysing its clinicopathological relevance. Furthermore, regional lymphadenectomy did not improve prognosis in the general population or any subgroup. CONCLUSION: There was a disparity between high regional lymphadenectomy rate and extremely low node‐positive rate in patients with HCC receiving LT, which requires further improvement in future clinical practice.