Liu F, Chen M, Mei J, et al. - Given that Bolondi criteria were proposed because of the heterogeneity of patients with Barcelona clinic liver cancer intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and categorization of patients into 4 substages was done, researchers retrospectively studied 404 patients with stage B1 HCC in order to compare the survival between those who initially received a combination of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) (TACE-RFA) vs those treated with TACE alone. In the TACE-RFA group, the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates were estimated to be 83.7%, 45.8%, and 24.8%, respectively, these values were 80.7%, 26.4%, and 16.7% in the TACE group, respectively. The corresponding progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 71.8%, 26.6%, and 13.0% in the TACE-RFA group and 59.1%, 11.0%, and 2.2% in the TACE group. The independent prognostic factor for both OS and PFS was tumor size, along with treatment allocation, as revealed in the multivariate regression analysis. Findings revealed better survival in relation to combination TACE and RFA treatment vs TACE alone for patients with stage B1 HCC according to the Bolondi criteria.