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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 28, 2016; 22(32): 7289-7300
Published online Aug 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i32.7289
Management of hepatocellular carcinoma with portal vein tumor thrombosis: Review and update at 2016
Stephen L Chan, Charing CN Chong, Anthony WH Chan, Darren MC Poon, Kenneth SH Chok
Stephen L Chan, State Key Laboratory in Oncology of South China, Institute of Digestive Disease, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Stephen L Chan, Darren MC Poon, Department of Clinical Oncology, Sir YK Pao Center for Cancer, Hong Kong Cancer Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, China
Charing CN Chong, Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Anthony WH Chan, State Key Laborator in Oncology of South China, Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Kenneth SH Chok, Department of Surgery, Queen Mary Hospital, The University of Hong Kong, China
Author contributions: Chan SL and Chok KSH designed the research; Chan SL, Chong CCN, Chan AWH, Poon DMC and Chok KSH performed the research; Chan SL, Chong CCN, Chan AWH, Poon DMC and Chok KSH analyzed the data; and Chan SL, Chong CCN, Chan AWH, Poon DMC and Chok KSH wrote the paper. An author may list more than one contribution, and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect.
Supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund Scheme, No. 462013.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Stephen L Chan has acted as an advisor to Novartis and MSD.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Stephen L Chan, Department of Clinical Oncology, Sir YK Pao Center for Cancer, Hong Kong Cancer Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong, China. chanlam_stephen@cuhk.edu.hk
Telephone: +852-2632-2118 Fax: +852-2648-7097
Received: March 29, 2016
Peer-review started: April 1, 2016
First decision: May 30, 2016
Revised: June 27, 2016
Accepted: August 1, 2016
Article in press: August 1, 2016
Published online: August 28, 2016
Processing time: 148 Days and 12.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Conventionally, the presence of portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) indicated an extremely poor prognosis for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and was considered a contraindication to both surgery and trans-arterial procedures. Recent studies indicate that HCC with PVTT represents a heterogeneous group with variable prognoses. Several classifications have been proposed to gauge the prognoses of PVTT. For selected patients with less severe PVTT, surgery with curative intent is feasible with favorable outcomes. Further, expanding treatment options, such as radiotherapy, radioembolization and systemic treatment, could improve the outcomes of patients with more severe forms of PVTT in patients with HCC.