[Non surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma]

During the last past years, the curative and preventive treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has improved. The regular follow-up of patients with chronic liver disease using ultrasound examination and serum alpha-fetoprotein determination, leads to diagnose hepatocellular carcinoma at an early stage, when curative treatment could be quite efficient. Besides surgery which has been the only hope of cure for a few patients, efficient medical procedures--ie chemoembolization, in situ radiotherapy and alcohol injection--are emerging. The place of these different therapeutic procedures is to be defined. In addition, the prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma should decrease due to the improvement of preventive policy--ie vaccination against hepatitis B infection and familial screening for genetic hemochromatosis.