What is the adjuvant treatment for liver cancer?
After surgical resection of hepatocellular carcinoma, the 5-year tumor recurrence and metastasis rate is as high as 40% to 70%, which is related to the possible presence of microscopic disseminated foci or multicenter occurrence before surgery, so all patients need to receive close follow-up after surgery. The adjuvant therapy, on the other hand, is the preventive treatment to prevent tumor recurrence and metastasis after the radical treatment (including surgery, radiofrequency, radiotherapy).
What adjuvant therapies are available
- For those at high risk of recurrence, postoperative prophylactic interventional embolization can detect and control postoperative microscopic residual cancer in the liver.
- Patients with active hepatitis B virus replication who receive postoperative antiviral therapy with oral nucleoside analogs can reduce the postoperative recurrence rate. Antiviral drugs are preferable to strong, low resistance drugs such as entecavir, tipifudin, or tenofovir lipid.
- There are also clinical studies suggesting that interferon alpha may reduce recurrence and prolong survival, but this remains controversial and is currently recommended only for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in combination with chronic hepatitis B.
- At present, there is no evidence to support the place of systemic chemotherapy in adjuvant therapy.