Three treatment methods via the hepatic artery for hepatocellular carcinoma - a retrospective study.

Background: To evaluate the relative effectiveness of different treatments of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) via the hepatic artery. Materials and Methods: The study sample group consisted of 418 patients who were randomly selected from 2008 to 2012 with a first diagnosis of HCC and treated with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) or without (TAE) chemotherapy or transcatheter arterial infusion (TAI). We collected data including tumor size preoperative and one month thereafter to compare change in areas across the three groups, along with various laboratory indexes for comparison. Results: The overall average change of areas was 240.8 +/- 72.1 mm(2). In the three groups it was 265.0 +/- 58.0 mm(2) vs. 250.5 +/- 51.9 mm(2) vs. 123.7 +/- 26.2 mm(2). In groups TACE and TAE values were larger than in group TAI (p<0.01), but the difference between the two was not statistically significant (p=0.191). Additionally, U/L change of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in groups TACE and TAE was greater than in the TAI cases (24.0 +/- 13.5 vs. 20.9 +/- 12.1 vs. 5.47 +/- 8.20 and 25.6 +/- 13.5 vs. 23.2 +/- 12.28 vs. 5.48 +/- 14.3) on the preoperative day and two days thereafter (p<0.01). Between the two groups there was no significant cariation (p=0.320 and p=0.609). However, the AST and ALT recovered to normal levels one month later on therapy with liver protecting drugs. Conclusion: The groups TACE and TAE demonstrated more effective reduction of tumor size than group TAI. While lipiodol caused acute liver function damage, this proved reversible.