Preventive treatments for recurrence after curative resection of hepatocellular carcinoma - A literature review of randomized control trials

Table 2 Summary of RCTs to evaluate the efficacy of pre- and post-operative TACE on prevention of recurrence

Authors	Tumor factors	Treatment protocol	Sample size (Tx/Ctl)	Observation time	DFS (Tx vs Ctl)	OS (Tx vs Ctl)	Conclusions
Wu[18]	> 10 cm; resectable	Pre-operative TACE	52 (24/28)	2-10 years	3-year	3-year	Harmful
					39% vs 46%a	31% vs 62%a
Yamasaki[19]	2-5 cm; Single	Pre-operative TACE	97 (50/47)	4-6.6 years	39.1% vs 31.1%	NA	Not effective
Izumi[6]	With vessel	Post-operative TACE,	50 (23/27)	28.7 Months	3-year	3-year	Postpone
	involvement or	once L 3 ml/m2 + A		(median)	32% vs 11.7%	56.6% vs 53.4%	recurrence, but
	intrahepatic spreading	20 mg/m2 + M					change over
		10 mg/m2 + G or:					all survival
		L 2 ml/m2 + A + M
Lai[8]	Negative in lipiodol	Post-operative TACE,	66 (30/36)	Median 28.3	3-year	3-year	Harmful
	CT, angiography and	3 times L 10 ml + C		months	18% vs 48%	65% vs 67%a
	ultrasound one month	10 mg + EA (40 mg/m2 iv × 8)
	after operation
Lau[7]	Surgical	Post-operative TACE	43 (21/22)	14.1-69.7	3-year	3-year	Beneficial
	margin ≥ 1 cm	I131 Lipiodol		months	74.5% vs 36%	84.4% vs 46.3%

L: Lipiodol; M: Mitomycin; A: Adriamycin, G: Gelfoam; C: Cis-platin; Tx: Treatment; Ctl: Control; DFS: Disease free survival; OS: Overall survival.

^aestimated according to the figure in authors’ paper.