Micrometastasis in surrounding liver and the minimal length of resection margin of primary liver cancer

Table 1 Perioperative data of 196 cases of primary liver cancer

	Retrospective group		Prospective group
	Without Mtor Ms	Total	Without Mtor Ms	With Mtor Ms
Cases	120	76	58	18
Age (yr)	49.6 ± 11.5	50.8 ± 11.4	52.4 ± 11.0	45.4 ± 11.2
	(30-81)	(24-78)	(31-78)	(24-65)
Sex (male/female)	100/20	63/13	47/11	16/2
TBIL (μmol/L)		12.8 ± 4.9	13.1 ± 4.5	11.9 ± 5.8
PALB (mg/L)		219 ± 59	222 ± 59	208 ± 58
PT (s)		12.5 ± 1.1	12.5 ± 1.0	12.6 ± 1.2
HBsAg (+)	98 (81.7%)	65 (85.5%)	49 (84.5%)	16 (88.9%)
Liver cirrhosis or fibrosis	103 (85.8%)	76 (100%)	58 (100%)	18 (100%)
Size of tumor (mm)	58.4 ± 42.6	54.9 ± 35.2	43.4 ± 23.9	92.0 ± 40.6
Tumor volume (cm3)		107 ± 203	54 ± 111	275 ± 320

Mt: macroscopic tumor thrombus; Ms: macrosatellite. TBIL: total bilirubin; PALB: pre-albumin; PT: prothrombin time.

Table 2 Distribution of micrometastases in surrounding liver of 178 cases of primary liver cancer without macroscopic tumor thrombi or macrosatellites

	Retrospective group (120 cases)			Prospective group (58 cases)
Distance(mm)	Cases	Percent	Accumulativepercent	Cases	Percent	Accumulativepercent
0	94	78.3	78.3	35	60.3	60.3
1	9	7.5	85.8	8	13.8	74.1
2	10	8.3	94.2	4	6.9	81
3	2	1.7	95.8	6	10.3	91.4
4	4	3.3	99.2	3	5.2	96.6
5	1	0.8	100.0	2	3.4	100.0

Table 3 Distribution of micrometastases in surrounding liver of 18 cases of primary liver cancer with macroscopic tumor thrombi or macrosatellites

Distance (mm)	Cases	Percent	Accumulative percent
0	5	27.78	27.8
3	7	38.89	66.7
6	3	16.67	83.3
9	0	0	83.3
12	1	5.56	88.9
15	1	5.56	94.4
18	1	5.56	100.0

Table 4 Relation between micrometastases and clinicopathological characteristics in 196 cases of primary liver cancer

	Retrospective group					Prospective group
Parameters	Cases	Both mtand ms	One of mtand ms	None of mtor ms	Pvalue	Cases	Both mtand ms	One of mtand ms	None of mtor ms	Pvalue
Encapsulation	120				< 0.01	76				< 0.01
No	24	1	2	21		12	1	5	6
Incomplete	54	3	17	34		55	16	17	22
Complete	42	0	3	39		9	0	0	9
AFP (μmol/L)	120				0.08	76				< 0.01
< 20	44	0	7	37		21	0	4	17
20-400	33	0	6	27		22	2	8	12
> 400	43	4	9	30		33	15	10	8
Size of tumor (mm)	111				0.1	76				< 0.01
≤ 20	10	0	1	9		7	0	1	6
20-30	23	1	3	19		14	2	4	8
30-50	30	1	6	23		29	4	8	17
50-100	27	0	3	24		15	6	6	3
> 100	21	2	5	14		11	5	3	3
Mt or Ms						76				< 0.01
Mt and Ms						3	3	0	0
Mt						9	6	3	0
Ms						6	0	2	4
None of both						58	8	18	32

Mt; microscopic tumor thrombus; ms: microsatellite. Incomplete encapsulation: part encapsulation or encapsulation breakthrough or with lesion inside encapsulation.