RECENT ADVANCES IN CLINICAL RESEARCH OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA IN CHINARECENT ADVANCES IN CLINICAL RESEARCH OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA IN CHINA

摘要

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the second cancer killer in rural areas and the third cancer killer in cities, has resulted in 110 000 annual deaths in China, which amounts to 40% of liver cancer deaths in the world. In the author's institute, based on analysis of 1 642 patients with pathologically proven HCC, comparison among the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s revealed that the 5-year survival rate has increased from 3.0%, 12.2% to 40.2%, indicating that HCC has progressed from incurable to partly curable. These were correlated to the increase of small HCC in the series and the increased number of patients with re-resection for subclinical recurrence and of cytoreduction and sequential resection for unresectable HCC. The decreased median tumor size (10, 10, and 7 cm), the increased resectability and multimodality treatment might also contribute to the improvement (Tang et al, 1993). All these reflect the progress in diagnosis and treatment, and the close linkage between basic and clinical aspects as well. The advances in the recent 5 years in China are delineated as follows.