Objective: To investigate the factors affecting prognosis of patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma (PHC) after resection.
Methods: From 1976 to 1992, 213 patients with PHC treated with hepatectomy were followed up for more than 5 years. Thirty-one of the patients who had survived for more than 5 years were compared with 56 patients who had survived for less than 5 years.
Results: Early detection of tumor, radical resection, number of tumors, capsule formation, operation safe distance, presence of portal tumor embolus, presence of cirrhosis and tumor size were important factors affecting the prognosis of patients with PHC. The proportion of small liver cancer in the patients who had survived for more than 5 years was greatly larger than that in the control group.
Conclusions: Early detection of tumor and radical resection are of value in raising the 5-year survival rate. Much remains to be investigated about the relationship between safe margin distance and prognosis of patients with PHC.