Primary Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Liver is Rare but Hostile: Case Series and Comprehensive Review of the Literature

Primary squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the liver is an uncommon cancer type. Only dozens of such cases have been reported in the literature. We reviewed three cases with primary SCC of the liver in a single center from January 2013 to October 2019. One case was positive for hepatitis B infection and simultaneously diagnosed with sigmoid adenocarcinoma and liver cyst. The second patient presented with hepatolithiasis. The remaining one had no history of prior liver insult, hepatic infection or any pre-existing hepatic cysts. Two cases had a long survival of more than one year through chemotherapy, or radical surgery plus transarterial chemoembolization. We also found 25 patients with primary hepatic SCC in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database from 1997 to 2016. The median age was 67 years (range 33–87 years). The median overall survival and disease-specific survival were 7.7 months (range 0.0–76.0 months) and 2.0 months (range 0.0–20.0 months), respectively. Furthermore, patients receiving surgery had a longer median OS (20.0 versus 6.0 months, P = 0.016) and DSS (48.0 versus 8.0 months, P = 0.03) than those receiving palliative treatment. Only 20% of all cases survived for more than a year. Although primary SCC of the liver has an unfavorable prognosis, radical surgery and systematic treatment might be helpful for clinical management.