Liver transplantation for combined hepatocellular cholangiocarcinoma

Combined hepatocellular cholangiocarcinoma (cHCC-CC) is an uncommon histological variant of primary liver cancer. This combined type of tumour lesion follows an aggressive clinical course with an unfavourable prognosis. Although the role of orthotopic liver transplantation in the management for hepatocellular carcinoma is well defined, to date, there has been no report on its treatment value for cHCC-CC. We report our experience of orthotopic liver transplantation in three patients with cHCC-CC. One patient succumbed to distant metastases 16.5 months after liver transplantation whereas the other two patients continued to survive 35 and 25 months after transplantation, respectively.