[Locally ablative therapies of hepatocellular carcinoma]

Locally Ablative Therapies of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Delayed diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) leads to a poor prognosis with a median survival time of less than 10 months. Surgical resection of small HCCs is the treatment of choice in patients with good residual liver function. The recurrence-free 5-year survival rate after curative resection is 33%. Resectability of HCC is often limited by the low hepatic functional reserve. Only 20% of all HCC are resectable in spite of novel diagnostic tools, an intensified screening, and advances in surgical technique. Local methods for tumor ablation are promising extensions of tumor therapy, especially in patients with limited liver function, nonresectable tumors, or multifocal tumors. Vis-à-vis a change of therapeutic options, local methods of tumor ablation in combination with tumor resection promise a yet unknown improvement of the prognosis for patients with HCC. Controlled randomized studies comparing and validating these methods of local tumor ablation are eagerly awaited. In the following article different methods of tumor ablation are described. Percutaneous interventions can be distinguished into vascular regional (TAE = transarterial embolization and TACE = transarterial catheter embolization) and local ablative approaches like PEI (percutaneous ethanol instillation), LITT (laser-induced thermotherapy), Cryo (cryotherapy), and RFA (radio frequency ablation).