Indication of liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma in Japan

Approximately 20,000 patients die of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) annually in Japan and most of them are hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) carriers. Recently, small HCC, less than 3 cm in diameter, have frequently been found by ultrasonography in the follow-up of patients with chronic liver diseases. Such cases are mainly treated by either surgical resection or percutaneous ethanol injection therapy (PEIT) with a satisfactory 5 year survival rate of 50%. In addition, the survival rate of advanced cases has gradually improved thanks to transcatheter arterial chemo-embolization combined with PEIT, radiation, hyperthermia, or immune therapy. On the other hand, our autopsy study has indicated a high frequency of extrahepatic metastasis in advanced cases. From these results, liver transplantation for HCC does not seem to be the treatment of first choice, at present, in Japan. In the future, the means to control the underlying infection of HBV or HCV as well as making an accurate imaging diagnosis for the detection of extrahepatic metastasis will become inevitably more important for successful liver transplantation in HCC.