Favourable outcome of pathologic downstaging by locoregional treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma in liver transplantation

No distinct guidelines are available regarding the effect of pretransplant locoregional treatment (LRT) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) staging system. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognosis of pathologic downstaging (PDS) by the exclusion of total necrosis after liver transplantation. We conducted a study of 326 HCC patients who underwent liver transplantation between September 2005 and December 2016. Two hundred twenty-two patients received pretransplant LRT and 102 patients did not. Among the former group, 74 (33.0%) achieved PDS while 150 (67.0%) showed unchanged T stage after the exclusion of total necrosis. Five-year HCC recurrent free survival (RFS) of PDS group (85.1%) was similar to that of the no LRT group (88.8%) but higher than that of the non-PDS group (68.9%; P < 0.001). Based on T stage adjusted with total necrosis and PDS status, RFS was similar in the PDS T1 (82.4%) and non-PDS T1 (86.5%) groups. Non-PDS T2 cancers had worse outcome regardless of the Milan (P = 0.982) or University of California San Francisco criteria (P = 0.466). On preoperative examination, parameters like less than 1 viable tumor, less than 1 cm of tumor size, and less than 20 ng/mL of serum alpha fetoprotein were associated with PDS. This study showed that PDS by LRT was associated with favorable outcome in HCC patients after liver transplantation.