Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 28, 2015; 7(9): 1168-1183
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i9.1168
Hepatocellular carcinoma: Surgeon's view on latest findings and future perspectives
Jan Erik Slotta, Otto Kollmar, Volker Ellenrieder, B Michael Ghadimi, Kia Homayounfar
Jan Erik Slotta, Otto Kollmar, B Michael Ghadimi, Kia Homayounfar, Department of General, Visceral and Pediatric Surgery, University Medical Center Goettingen, D-37075 Goettingen, Germany
Volker Ellenrieder, Department of Gastroenterology and Endocrinology, University Medical Center Goettingen, D-37075 Goettingen, Germany
Author contributions: Slotta JE contributed to literature review, manuscript writing, final approval; Kollar O and Homayounfar K contributed to manuscript writing, final approval; Ellenrieder V and Ghadimi BM contributed to draft correction, final approval.
Conflict-of-interest: All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest with regard to this review article.
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: Kia Homayounfar, MD, Department of General, Visceral and Pediatric Surgery, University Medical Center Goettingen, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, D-37075 Goettingen, Germany. khomayounfar@chirurgie-goettingen.de
Telephone: +49-551-396736 Fax: +49-551-396106
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 30, 2014
First decision: October 14, 2014
Revised: January 29, 2015
Accepted: March 18, 2015
Article in press: March 20, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver-derived malignancy with a high fatality rate. Risk factors for the development of HCC have been identified and are clearly described. However, due to the lack of tumor-specific symptoms, HCC are diagnosed at progressed tumor stages in most patients, and thus curative therapeutic options are limited. The focus of this review is on surgical therapeutic options which can be offered to patients with HCC with special regard to recent findings, not exclusively focused on surgical therapy, but also to other treatment modalities. Further, potential promising future perspectives for the treatment of HCC are discussed.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma, Surgical therapy, Interventional therapy, Multimodal treatment, Extended indications

Core tip: This review presents an overview on most important knowledge on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) for surgeons and describes the common surgical and non-surgical therapeutic options for the treatment of HCC. Further, a perspective on novel aspect and future decision aids is given.