Chong CCN, et al. – This study aimed at determining whether the newly–developed Albumin–Bilirubin (ALBI) grade might help in treatment selections and to evaluate the survival of patients treated with liver resection and radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Findings revealed superior survival with liver resection in comparison to RFA in patients with BCLC stage 0/A hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The ALBI grade seemed to identify those patients with worse liver function who did not gain any survival advantage from curative liver resection.

Methods

• This study included patients with BCLC stage 0/A HCC who were treated with curative liver resection and RFA from 2003 to 2013.
• Hospital database was utilized to assess the baseline clinical and laboratory parameters.
• They assessed liver function and its impact on survival by the ALBI score.
• The groups were compared regarding overall and disease-free survivals.

Results

• During the study period, authors identified 488 patients who underwent liver resection (n = 318) and RFA (n = 170) for BCLC stage 0/A HCC.
• As per findings, liver resection offered superior survival to RFA in patients with BCLC stage 0/A HCC in the whole cohort.
• After propensity score matching, liver resection seemed to offer superior overall survival and disease-free survival to RFA in patients with ALBI grade 1 (P = 0.0002 and P < 0.0001 respectively).
• In contrast, findings revealed no marked differences regarding overall survival and disease-free survival between liver resection and RFA in patients with ALBI grade 2 (P = 0.7119 and 0.3266, respectively).