Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Apr 24, 2025; 16(4): 100729
Published online Apr 24, 2025. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v16.i4.100729
Multidisciplinary tumor board is associated with improved survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after liver transplantation
Li Zhang, Jian Yang, Jun-Jie Li, Chi-Yi Chen, Xiao-Dong Wang, Yan Xie, Wen-Tao Jiang
Li Zhang, Jian Yang, Jun-Jie Li, Chi-Yi Chen, Xiao-Dong Wang, Yan Xie, Wen-Tao Jiang, Department of Liver Transplantation, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin 300192, China
Co-first authors: Li Zhang and Jian Yang.
Co-corresponding authors: Yan Xie and Wen-Tao Jiang.
Author contributions: Zhang L and Jiang WT generated the study concept; Yang J, Xie Y, Li JJ, Chen CY, and Wang XD collected data; Yang J drafted manuscript; Zhang L and Jiang WT revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; Zhang L and Yang J contributed equally as co-first authors; Xie Y and Jiang WT contributed equally as co-corresponding authors.
Supported by Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, No. 21JCYBJC01140; Key Project of Tianjin Science and Technology Bureau Applied Basic Research, No. 23JCZDJC01200; Key Project of Scientific Research Plan of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, No. 2023YXZD07; and Project of Tianjin Science and Technology Bureau Applied Basic Research, No. 23JCYBJC01800.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of Tianjin First Central Hospital (No.2019 N168KY).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article as its supplementary materials.
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: Wen-Tao Jiang, MD, Department of Liver Transplantation, Tianjin First Center Hospital, No. 24 Fukang Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300192, China. jiangwentao@nankai.edu.cn
Received: August 26, 2024
Revised: November 24, 2024
Accepted: January 2, 2025
Published online: April 24, 2025
Processing time: 213 Days and 20.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks as the sixth most common cancer and the third- leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The multidisciplinary tumor board (MDTB) has been recognized for improving outcomes in cancer management, but its role in patients with HCC undergoing liver transplantation (LT) remains underexplored.

AIM

To evaluate the impact of an MDTB on survival outcomes in patients with HCC undergoing LT.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed 393 patients with HCC who underwent LT at our institution from October 2015 to October 2021. Patients were categorized into the MDTB and non-MDTB groups. We compared preoperative and postoperative characteristics, overall survival (OS), and disease-free survival (DFS) between the two groups.

RESULTS

Within the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) criteria, no significant differences in OS and DFS were noted between the MDTB and non-MDTB groups. However, for patients who exceeded the UCSF criteria, the MDTB group exhibited a substantial improvement in both OS and DFS. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year OS rates for the MDTB group in this subgroup were 88.68%, 75.29%, and 61.78%, respectively, compared to 83.02%, 64.07%, and 38.25%, respectively in the non-MDTB group. Similarly, DFS rates were 89.47%, 71.35%, and 63.52%, respectively, vs 82.18%, 53.78%, and 34.04%, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The MDTB approach was particularly beneficial for patients with HCC exceeding the UCSF criteria, significantly improving OS and DFS. These findings advocate for integrating MDTB into clinical practice for optimizing the management of high-risk patients with HCC undergoing LT.

Keywords: Multidisciplinary tumor board; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Liver transplantation; Survival outcomes; Retrospective study

Core Tip: This study evaluated the impact of a multidisciplinary tumor board (MDTB) on the survival outcomes of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing liver transplantation. While MDTB and non-MDTB groups showed similar outcomes within the University of California, San Francisco criteria, MDTB involvement significantly improved overall survival and disease-free survival in patients exceeding University of California, San Francisco criteria. By integrating expertise from various specialties, MDTB enhanced bridging therapies, perioperative management, and individualized treatment strategies, advocating for its adoption to optimize outcomes for high-risk patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing liver transplantation.