Prevention of hepatocellular carcinoma: Focusing on antioxidant therapy

Table 1 Clinical trials of chemoprevention effects in hepatocarcinogenesis

Therapy	Ref.	Year	Study design	Treated patients/control	Disease	Combinedmedication	Hepatocarcinogenesis rate
Phlebotomy	Kato et al[16]	2007	Open labeled	35/40	Chronic hepatitis C	None	Hepatocarcinogenesis rates in iron depletion and control were 5.7% and 17.5% at the end of the fifth year, and 8.6% and 39% in the tenth year, respectively (P = 0.018)
Glycyrrhizin	Ikeda[29]	2007	Case-control	244/102	Chronic hepatitis C	None	Crude carcinogenesis rates in the treated and untreated group were 13.3%, 26.0% at the fifth year, and 21.5% and 35.5% at the 10th year, respectively (P = 0.021)
Glycyrrhizin	Arase et al[32]	1997	Case-control	84/109	Chronic hepatitis C	None	The 10th-year rates of cumulative HCC incidence for the treated and untreated group were 7% and 12%, and the 15th-yr rates were 12% and 25%, respectively (P = 0.032)
Ursodeoxycholic Acid	Tarao et al[44]	2005	Case-control	56/46	Hepatitis C virus -associated liver cirrhosis	Sho-saiko-to, Ursodeoxycholic acid	The cumulative 5-yr incidence of HCC in the patients treated with UDCA was 17.9% and was significantly lower than that in patients not treated with UDCA (39.1%; P = 0.025)
Vitamin E	Kakizaki et al[48]	2001	Randomized controlled	44/39	Chronic hepatitis C	None	Cumulative tumor-free survival tended to be higher in the Vit E group than in controls, albeit statistically insignificant
Sho-saiko-to	Oka et al[64]	1995	Randomized open controlled	130/130	Cirrhosis from chronic liver disease	None	The cumulative incidence curve for 5 yr of the trial group was lower than that of the control group (P = 0.071), albeit statistically insignificant

HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; UDCA: Ursodeoxycholic acid.