ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Surgical Oncology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2025.1619772
This article is part of the Research TopicBasic and Clinical Research on Surgical Treatment and Targeted Immunotherapy for Liver CancerView all 5 articles
Efficacy of Postoperative Adjuvant Hepatic Artery Infusion Chemotherapy for Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Microvascular Invasion: A Propensity-Matched Score
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
- 2West Hospital, Chongqing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: This study aims to investigate the effect of postoperative adjuvant hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (PA-HAIC) on the recurrence of HCC patients with MVI after radical liver resection (LR). Materials and methods: This study retrospectively evaluated patients with HCC who underwent radical liver resection with MVI at the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2024. The recurrencefree survival (RFS) of patients who received PA-HAIC was compared with that of patients who only received LR by PSM, and subgroup analyses were performed to compare the efficacy of PA-HAIC for patients in different subgroups based on patient combined risk factors for recurrence, patients' age and the number of PA-HAIC treatments received.Results: A total of 175 HCC patients with MVI who underwent radical liver resection were enrolled in this study, including a total of 72 patients in the PA-HAIC group and 103 patients in the LR group, and after PSM, 67 patients were matched in the PA-HAIC and LR groups, respectively. In the entire cohort, the median RFS (mRFS) were 33.00 months and 15.00 months for patients in the PA-HAIC and LR groups, respectively (p < 0. 001). In the PSM cohort, the mRFS was 33.00 months and 18.00 months for patients in the PA-HAIC and LR groups, respectively (p < 0.001). When stratifying patients based on combined risk factors in the entire cohort, in cases where MVI + tumor diameter ≥ 5cm (MVID), MVI + multiple tumor (MVIN), and MVI + tumor diameter ≥ 5cm + multiple tumor (MVID+N), patients in the PA-HAIC group showed better mRFS than those in the LR group. Within the PA-HAIC group, there was no statistically significant difference in mRFS among patients with MVI alone, MVI+D, MVI+N, and MVI+D+N. The conclusions of the PSM cohort are consistent. Conclusions: PA-HAIC is beneficial for HCC patients with MVI after LR, and patients aged ≤ 55 years with MVI + tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm, MVI + multiple tumors or MVI + tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm + multiple tumors should receive at least two PA-HAIC treatments.
Keywords: Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Radical liver resection, Microvascular invasion, Hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, Propensity score-matching
Received: 28 Apr 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Feng, Wu, Chen, Ao, Shi and Gong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: YiXuan Gong, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.