Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma can only be cured by physical removal or destruction of the tumor before it has spread. This can be accomplished by the ablation of the tumor, surgical resection of the tumor-bearing liver, or by liver transplantation. Ablation and resection can only be performed in patients who will be left with sufficient liver volume to sustain normal hepatic function. Unfortunately, the same disease that caused the HCC also limits the amount of parenchymal loss that can be tolerated by the patient. Liver transplantation is an appealing treatment option because it has the potential to cure patient of both the cancer and the predisposinig liver disease. Excellent survival rates are possible in patients with early HCC who receive a transplant, but dismal results are seen when patients with advanced tumors are transplanted.Wide criteria for transplant allow for more patients to be cured of HCC, but this comes at the expense of a greater overall recurrence rate. The acceptable recurrence rate is not a concrete number, but this is a function of donor organ availability. A 50% cure rate is viewed as an excellent outcome for many accepted cancer operations; however, in the case of transplant for HCC, this would represent a poor use of the scarce donor resource when the same liver offers a 70% 5-year survival rate to a non-HCC patient. These issues and methods retarding tumor progression while on the transplant waiting list are reviewed herein.