Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma is the fifth most common malignant cancer in the world. Liver resection and local ablation are the most effective therapeutic approaches for most HCC patients. Recurrence after curative therapy is very common. Some studies reveal that IFNs have an effect on recurrence. While the opinion is disagreement.
Objectives: The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate whether interferon therapy could reduce the recurrence of patients of hepatitis B/C virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma after curative therapy.
Material and methods: All randomized controlled trials about interferon on recurrence of hepatitis B/C virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma patients after curative surgery treatment were searched from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library (all from 1977 to January 2014). Two reviewers independently assessed the quality of each included study and extracted data. RevMan 5.1 was used for meta-analysis.
Results: Pooled data analysis revealed that the interferon group had no statistical significance on the recurrence of hepatitis-related hepatocellular carcinoma compared to the control group (RR=0.91, 95% CI, 0.82 to 1.00; p=0.11). While from the subgroup analysis of adjuvant interferon can reduce the recurrence of the median tumor size below 3 cm (RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.35-0.72; p=0.00002).
Conclusions: Adjuvant IFN after curative treatment of hepatitis-related HCC can improve the survival of HCC patients. In addition, IFN could decrease the recurrence rate of HCC patient with median tumor size below 3 cm but not exceeding 3 cm.