Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Sep 24, 2024; 15(9): 1251-1255
Published online Sep 24, 2024. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v15.i9.1251
Timing of antiviral therapy in patients with hepatitis B virus related hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing hepatectomy
Dong-Ling Wan, Li-Qi Sun
Dong-Ling Wan, Li-Qi Sun, Department of Gastroenterology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Li-Qi Sun, Department of Gastroenterology, 72th Group Army Hospital, Huzhou 313000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Wan DL is the main author of the manuscript and has made substantial contributions to the reference acquisition and analysis, and manuscript preparation; Sun LQ is the guarantor of integrity of the entire manuscript final version approval; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Qi Sun, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, No. 168 Changhai Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200433, China. zjhzslqsmmu@foxmail.com
Received: April 23, 2024
Revised: August 8, 2024
Accepted: August 19, 2024
Published online: September 24, 2024
Processing time: 127 Days and 16.8 Hours
Abstract

Globally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is among the most prevalent and deadly cancers. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is an important etiology and disease progression factor for HCC. Hepatectomy is a widely accepted curative treatment for HCC, but the long-term survival rate is still unsatisfactory due to the high recurrence rate after resection. Preoperative or postoperative antiviral therapy plays an important role in improving the prognosis for HBV-related HCC patients who underwent hepatectomy. However, many patients miss out on the chance to receive long-term preoperative antiviral medication because their HBV and HCC infections are discovered concurrently, necessitating the start of remedial antiviral therapy in the perioperative phase. Therefore, it is of great value to know when antiviral therapy is more appropriate and whether perioperative rescue antiviral therapy can achieve the effect of preoperative long-term antiviral therapy.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Hepatitis B virus; Hepatectomy; Antiviral therapy; Hepatitis B virus-DNA; Hepatitis B virus-DNA

Core Tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common and highly fatal malignancies worldwide and is usually associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Hepatectomy is a widely accepted curative treatment for HCC, but the long-term survival rate is still unsatisfactory due to the high recurrence rate after resection. Preoperative or postoperative antiviral therapy plays an important role in improving the prognosis for HBV-related HCC patients who underwent hepatectomy. Therefore, we explored when antiviral therapy is more appropriate and whether perioperative rescue antiviral therapy can achieve the effect of preoperative long-term antiviral therapy in the paper.