Background and aims: We aimed to compare clinical outcomes and safety of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in single hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients aged > 75 years (elderly group) versus patients aged < 75 years (control group).
Patients and methods: There were 130 patients in the elderly group and 238 in the control group. Clinical outcomes including overall survival (OS), recurrence free survival (RFS) and local tumor progression (LTP), and safety were analysed for these two groups after initial RFA.
Results: The mean (+/- standard deviation [SD]) tumor diameter in the elderly and the control groups was 2.13 +/- 0.86 cm and 1.92 +/- 0.63 cm, respectively; the mean (+/- SD) observation period was 2.5 +/- 1.8 years and 3.2 +/- 2.0 years, respectively. The 1 and 3 year OS rates were 90.0 and 64.1%, respectively, in the elderly group and 97.6 and 83.7%, respectively, in the control group (P=0.001); the corresponding RFS rates were 66.9 and 21.3%, respectively, in the elderly group and 80.5 and 40.0%, respectively, in the control group (P=0.001). The 1 and 3 year LTP rates were 15.0 and 43.0%, respectively, in the elderly group and 8.3 and 26.3%, respectively, in the control group (P=0.002). In terms of duration of hospitalization (P=0.807) and serious adverse events related RFA (P=0.670), there was no significant difference between these two groups.
Conclusion: The clinical outcomes in the elderly group were poorer than those in the control group, although RFA in the elderly patients was a safe procedure.