Background: We evaluated the clinical efficacy of transarterial infusion chemotherapy using a cisplatin-lipiodol emulsion for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Patients and methods: Fifty-seven patients with advanced HCC, with no indications for surgical resection or local ablative therapy, such as percutaneous ethanol injection and radiofrequency ablation, were enrolled in this retrospective study.
Results: Twelve patients were treated with cisplatin-alone at a dose of 65 mg/m(2) by infusion into the artery. Forty-two patients were treated with the same dose of cisplatin suspended in 1-10 ml of lipiodol (C/LPD). Cumulative survival rates in the cisplatin-treated group were 46.2% at one year, and 18.5% at two years, whereas these in the C/LPD group were 81.6% and 44.4%, respectively, with a significant difference between the two groups (p<0.01). In the cisplatin-treated group (n=13), no (0%) patients had a complete response (CR), two (15%) a partial response (PR), three (23%) no change (NC), and eight (62%) progressive disease (PD). In the C/LPD group (n=44), four (9%) patients had CR, 16 (35%) PR, 12 (26%) NC, and 12 (26%) PD. CR and PR were seen in 15% of the cisplatin-treated group and in 44% of the C/LPD group. C/LPD was significantly more effective than cisplatin-alone (p=0.039). Some patients showed tumor response to C/LPD after intra-arterial infusion of low-dose 5-fluorouracil.
Conclusion: C/LPD produced superior effects compared to cisplatin-alone for unresectable HCC, causing no major side-effects, and increasing the survival rate.