[Multimodality treatment and two-stage resection for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma--experimental and clinical...

During the period 1978-1987, 255 patients with pathologically proven hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were assessed to be unresectable by laparotomy. Of them 155 had their tumors chiefly confined in the right or left lobe. Second stage resection was performed in 26 (16.8%) after marked reduction of the tumor by combination treatment with hepatic artery ligation (HAL) + hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy (HAI) + multifractionated radiotherapy (MFD) with linear accelerator, or radioimmunotherapy using 131I-anti human HCC ferritin antibody (131I-FtAb), which yielded the highest second stage resection rate (29.8%, 14/47) as compared to HAL + HAI or HAL + cryosurgery (16.9%, 12/71), HAL or HAI (0%, 0/37) alone. The 3 year survival rate of the 26 patients with second stage resection was 74.3%, comparable with those of small HCC resection (82.7%, n = 111) and radical resection of large HCC (56.1%, n = 122) in the same period. Experimental study using nude mice bearing human HCC also showed the superiority of triple (MFD or 131I-FtAb + Cisplatin PDD + mixed bacterial vaccine MBV) versus double (MFD or 131I-FtAb + PDD, or MFD or 131I-FtAb + MBV) and double versus single treatment modality. Both experimental and clinical data indicated that immunosuppression after radiotherapy was prevented by adjuvant immunotherapy (MBV). Thus, this treatment model provides an opportunity for resection or even cure in a part of patients with unresectable HCC confined in one lobe.