Active treatments are a rational approach for hepatocellular carcinoma in elderly patients

Figure 3 Differences in survival and background characteristics by age groups. A: In a cohort of 330 patients for whom life expectancy (LE) data are available, the survival of five different age groups was evaluated on the basis of absolute time (upper panel) or percent LE (lower panel). The solid black and dotted lines are the survival curves of the 80 years of age or older and 70-79 years of age groups, respectively. The other lines are 60-69 years of age, 50-59 years of age and 49 years of age or younger groups, indicated in colors ranging from dark to pale. The oldest group showed the worst survival in days but the best in percent LE; significantly better than that of the youngest group (P = 0.041); B: The distributions of Child-Pugh class (upper), tumor stage (middle), and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity (lower) among three age groups: 59 years of age or younger, 60-79 years of age, and 80 years of age or older. For the hepatic reserve, the white, grey and black columns indicate Child-Pugh A, B and C classes, respectively, whereas tumor stages from I to IV are represented in order from white to black. The black column reveals that HBsAg was positive in the lower graph. There was no significant difference in terms of functional hepatic reserve among the three groups, although anatomical tumor extent and frequency of positive reaction for HBsAg were significantly higher in the youngest group as compared with the middle-aged group (P = 0.010 and P < 0.0001, respectively). The dotted horizontal lines indicate a position of 50% survival.