Surgical outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with biliary tumor thrombi

BACKGROUND To investigate the surgical outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with biliary tumor thrombi (BTT). METHODS Surgical outcome of 27 HCC patients with BTT (group I) were compared with randomly selected HCC patients without BTT (group II; n = 270). RESULTS One patient in group I died of hepatic failure within 30 days after resection. The 1-, 3- and 5-year cumulative survival rates of group I were 70.3%, 25.9%, and 7.4%, respectively; these were significantly lower than those of group II (90.6%, 54.0%, and 37.7%) (P <0.001). The rates of early recurrence (≤ 1 year) after resection were significantly higher in group I than group II (70.3% vs. 34.8%) (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION HCC patients with BTT had a worse prognosis after resection than those without BTT. Resection should be considered for these tumors given the lack of effective alternative therapies.