Analysis of the clinicopathological features of hepatocellular carcinoma in elderly patients.

The peak age of onset of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is continually increasing worldwide. This study aims to evaluate whether there exists any significant difference in the clinicopathological features between younger- and elderly-HCC.1082 Consecutive patients with HCC who underwent liver resection at Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University from 1995 to 1998 were studied. The patients were divided into elderly-HCC (>or=65 years of age) and younger-HCC (< 65 years of age). Important clinicopathological features of the patients and postoperative survival rates were compared between these two groups. Among 1082 patients studied, 108 were elderly-HCC and 974 were younger-HCC. The resection rate of the elderly-HCC was significantly higher than that of the younger-HCC. The 1, 3 and 5-year survival rates of the elderly-HCC were not significantly different from those of the younger-HCC. Compared with the younger-HCC, the elderly-HCC had (1) less HBsAg-positive rate; (2) more frequent anti-HCV positivity ; (3) lower proportion with AFP value >or=400 microg/dl; (4) a relatively small tumor diameter; (5) higher proportion of stage I-II patients; (6) a relatively low metastasis rate. However, there were no statistically significant differences in other clinicopathological features (including gender, symptoms, tumor number, tumor venous invasion, tumor differentiation, capsular formation, type of cirrhosis) between the two groups. There is a certain extent difference in clinicopathological features between elderly and younger-HCC patients, but the postoperative survival rate is comparable between the two groups.