[Clinical evaluation of postoperative adjuvant arterial infusion chemotherapy in resected hepatoma patients].

Eighty surgically treated patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were divided into two groups. In group I, twenty patients whose mean diameter of tumors was 56 mm, prophylactically underwent hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy after liver resection. Chemotherapeutic agents (5-FU, ADM, MMC, CDDP, Lipiodol) were administered 4 times a year via Infuse A port. The remaining 60 patients, whose mean diameter of tumors was 57 mm, served as the control without prophylactic infusion (group II). The 2-year cumulative survival rate was higher in the prophylactic group (71%) than the control (48%, p = 0.040). The two-year disease-free survival rate was improved in group I (38%) compared with that in group II (27%, p = 0.021). Intrahepatic multiple recurrence within 1 year after surgery was recognized in four out of 18 patients of group I (22%) and in thirty-three out of 60 patients of group II (55%, p = 0.029). In group I, two cases who died of hepatic failure with no recurrence, had lower functional reverse and a larger amount of Lipiodol than the remaining 18 patients. Adjuvant arterial infusion chemotherapy can thus be be efficacious in alleviating hepatoma recurrence after liver resection. For patients with poor liver function, a smaller volume of chemotherapeutic agents might be feasible.