[Prognostic factors in liver tumors].

The prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma is dismal. Long-term survival and cure of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can be expected only after resection or hepatectomy followed by transplantation. Thus, prognosis primarily depends on the possibility of resective surgery, which is determined predominantly by anatomic extent of disease. This survey deals with factors that become effective after resection or transplantation and that have prognostic significance in univariate or multivariate analyses. Several studies have shown that resection for cure (R classification) and anatomical extent of the tumors (TNM) were the most important prognostic factors. Prognostic factors other than TNM and R can be grouped into clinical findings and pathological features. As to clinical findings, performance status is an important prognostic factor in one multivariate analysis. The effects of other factors as age, sex, tumor site, and hepatomegaly on prognosis were discussed controversially. As might be expected, studies on pathological factors yielded different results. Histological grade had an influence in one study, but not in another. Histological type and coexisting cirrhosis were important in multivariate analysis only in resected patients. The majority of factors (capsule formation, dysplasia of adjacent liver tissue, mitotic activity, bile production) were only investigated in univariate analyses. There are only few studies evaluating the prognostic importance of molecular pathology factors. None of them has shown convincing evidence that these parameters may give information more important than TNM and R classification. The prognostic importance of TNM for patients not treated by resective surgery is emphasized in many studies. Ascites, toxic syndrome, and laboratory variables as bilirubin, blood urea nitrogen, and serum albumin were independent predictors of survival. The prognosis of patients with cholangiocarcinoma is even worse than that of HCC-patients and only 25% patients resected with stage-II-tumors can be expected to survive for five years.