Long-Term Surgical Outcomes of Liver Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Patients With HBV and HCV Co-Infection: A Multicenter Observational Study

• Published in: Frontiers in oncology 2021-07, Vol.11, p.700228-700228
• Main Authors: Jia, Hang-Dong, Liang, Lei, Li, Chao, Wu, Han, Wang, Hong, Liang, Ying-Jian, Zhou, Ya-Hao, Gu, Wei-Min, Fan, Xin-Ping, Zhang, Wan-Guang, Chen, Ting-Hao, Chen, Zhi-Yu, Zhong, Jian-Hong, Lau, Wan Yee, Pawlik, Timothy M, Diao, Yong-Kang, Xu, Qiu-Ran, Shen, Feng, Zhang, Cheng-Wu, Huang, Dong-Sheng, Yang, Tian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: hepatectomy; hepatitis B virus; hepatitis C virus; hepatocellular carcinoma; Oncology; overall survival; recurrence-free survival
• ISSN: 2234-943X; 2234-943X
• DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2021.700228

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most serious consequences of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This study sought to investigate long-term outcomes after liver resection for HCC among patients with HBV/HCV co-infection (HBV/HCV-HCC) compared with patients with HBV infection (HBV-HCC). Patients who underwent curative-intent liver resection for HCC were identified from a multicenter Chinese database. Using propensity score matching (PSM), patients with HBV/HCV-HCC were matched one-to-one to patients with HBV-HCC. Overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were compared between the two groups before and after PSM. Among 2,467 patients identified, 93 (3.8%) and 2,374 (96.2%) patients had HBV/HCV-HCC and HBV-HCC, respectively. Compared with patients with HBV-HCC, patients with HBV/HCV-HCC were older, have poorer liver-related characteristics but better tumor-related characteristics. PSM created 88 pairs of patients with comparable liver- and tumor-related characteristics (all > 0.2). In the PSM cohort, the 3- and 5-year RFS rates in patients with HBV/HCV-HCC were 48.3% and 38.9%, which were significantly poorer than patients with HBV-HCC (61.8% and 49.2%, = 0.037). Meanwhile, the 3- and 5-year OS rates in patients with HBV/HCV-HCC were also poorer than patients with HBV-HCC (65.4% and 51.1% 73.7% and 63.0%), with a difference close to be significant between them ( = 0.081). Comparing to patients with HBV-HCC, liver resection resulted in relatively poorer long-term surgical outcomes in patients with HBV/HCV-HCC.