Practical management of hepatocellular carcinoma

Primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the ten commonest tumours in the world and occurs mainly in patients with cirrhosis. To date, in Western countries, curative treatment options include partial liver resection or liver transplantation in selected patients with small tumours. Unfortunately, most patients are detected with non-resectable or non-transplantable HCC due to disease extension, hepatic dysfunction or comorbid factors. These patients may benefit from local ablative therapy, such as percutaneous ethanol injection or radiofrequency ablation, with curative intent in patients with small tumours. In advanced HCC chemoembolization has a high response rate, but there is no clear evidence of a survival benefit. In this review we discuss practical considerations in the treatment of HCC and propose an algorithm for the selection of different treatment modalities.