[Surgical strategy in pediatric liver malignancies].

The therapeutic results of two groups of children with liver tumours were compared: group 1 [29 hepatoblastomas (HB) and five liver carcinomas (HCC)] were operated before 1987, and group 2 (88 HB and 16 HCC) were treated according to the studies HB 89 and HB 94 of the GPOH from 1988 onwards. Resection rates for HB were 81% (group 1) and 93% (group 2), with tumour-free survival rates of 38% and 77%, respectively: anatomic liver resections were more often radical than atypical tumour resections. Resections of lung metastases and liver transplantations increased tumour-free survival. In HCC therapeutic results were equally poor (25% cure). Thus in HB combined chemotherapy and surgery is highly effective, but HCCs are cured only by radical resections.