Background: The aim of this study was to clarify the clinicopathologic features of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with extrahepatic metastasis after the removal of primary HCC, and the risk factors of extrahepatic recurrence.
Methods: Clinicopathologic data were available for 264 HCC patients who underwent an R0 resection for HCC. Twenty-six patients who developed extrahepatic recurrence during the follow-up period (EXT group) were compared with patients who remained free from recurrence for at least 5 years after resection (n = 46) (No R group) or had only intrahepatic recurrences (n = 193) (INT group). We also estimated the risk factors of extrahepatic recurrence and survival in these 26 patients.
Results: There were significant differences in primary tumor size, patient's age, findings in the noncancerous portion, macroscopic type, ductal invasion, intrahepatic metastasis, hepatic involvement and curability of primary tumor, treatment for recurrent tumor, and prognosis between the EXT group and the other groups. Extrahepatic recurrence was significantly associated with six factors by univariate analyses: age, indocyanine green (ICG) 15-min retention rate, tumor size, hepatic involvement of primary tumor, type of hepatectomy, and TNM stage, of which tumor size was an independent risk factor. Resection of recurrent tumor was the only independent favorable factor for survival of patients with extrahepatic recurrence.
Conclusions: HCC patients with extrahepatic recurrence had advanced primary tumors and poor prognosis. HCC patients with primary tumors larger than 60 mm were predicted to develop extrahepatic recurrence. Resection of recurrent tumor can improve the prognosis of HCC patients with extrahepatic recurrence.