Search

Background: Early recurrence (ER) of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (within 1 year after resection) is known to be a poor prognostic factor. The aim was to identify the risk factors associated with ER after HCC resection. Methods: Data were analyzed retrospectively from patients who underwent primary resection for HCC from two hospitals. For cross‐validation, HCC resection cases were divided into the training and testing cohort. The clinicopathological factors between the ER and non‐ER groups and factors for predicting ER and prognosis after HCC resection were compared. Results: Out of 173 patients in the training dataset, 33 patients had ER and the ER group showed larger tumor size, more intrahepatic metastasis (IM), and a higher ratio of serum des‐gamma‐carboxy prothrombin (DCP) to tumor volume (TV) (DCP/TV) than the non‐ER group. Out of 203 patients in the testing dataset, 30 patients had ER and the ER group demonstrated larger tumor size, more IM, and higher serum alpha‐fetoprotein, AFP/TV, DCP/TV, AFP/tumor maximum diameter (TMD), and DCP/TMD than the non‐ER group. The patients were divided into high and low DCP/TV groups and high serum DCP/TV was associated with unfavorable overall survival in the training and testing dataset. Multivariate analysis confirmed that high serum DCP/TV and IM were independently associated with ER. Conclusion: Preoperative high serum DCP/TV may be useful for stratifying patients at risk of early HCC recurrence after curative resection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) recurrence after curative resection is a known poor prognostic factor. We aimed to identify microRNAs associated with recurrence after curative HCC resection. Methods: To identify risk factors for early recurrence and metastasis, 694 patients who underwent primary curative HCC resection were analyzed. We evaluated microRNA expression in cancerous and non‐cancerous tissues by microarray and quantitative PCR analyses using 16 HCC samples. We defined patients who had a recurrence within 1 year of resection as the early recurrence (ER) group, patients who had a recurrence within 1–5 years as the late recurrence (LR) group, and patients who did not recur during the 5‐year observation period as the no recurrence (NR) group. We examined the relationship between microRNA expression and clinical features. Results: Multivariate analysis revealed that α‐fetoprotein >31 ng/mL, tumor size >4 cm, and intrahepatic metastasis (IM) were significant factors. Afterwards, microarray analyses revealed that microRNA (miR)‐125b‐5p and miR‐148a‐3p were significantly downregulated in recurrent cases. The ratio of miR‐125b‐5p expression in cancerous versus non‐cancerous tissue (miR‐125b ratio), but not miR‐148a‐3p, was significantly lower in the ER group. Early recurrence was associated with reduced overall survival compared with the LR and NR group. The miR‐125b ratio was significantly lower in the ER group than in the LR and NR groups. Multivariate analysis showed that a low miR‐125b ratio and IM were independently associated with ER and disease‐free survival. Conclusions: Assessing tissue miR‐125b‐5p expression and IM is useful for stratifying patients at risk of early HCC recurrence after curative resection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]