Incidence and risk factors for surveillance failure in patients with regular hepatocellular carcinoma surveillance

Initial presentation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at an advanced stage in patients under a regular surveillance program is a devastating problem.

We assessed the prevalence and factors associated with this surveillance failure.

A total of 304 HCC patients who received regular surveillance were retrospectively reviewed. Surveillance failure was defined when the tumor was diagnosed at beyond the Milan criteria.

Surveillance failure rate was 5.9 %. Macronodular cirrhosis (MC), ultrasonography-only surveillance (US-S) and infiltrative tumor type were independent factors associated with surveillance failure. The surveillance failure rate was higher in patients with MC (10.3 vs. 3.2 %, p = 0.022), US-S (14.6 vs. 4.3 %, p = 0.013) and when the tumor was infiltrative type (57.1 vs. 2.1 %, p < 0.001). Based on the two baseline factors (MC and US-S), the surveillance failure rates were 35.7, 6.8, 5.9 and 2.6 % for MC(+)/US-S(+), MC(+)/US-S(-), MC(-)/US-S(+) and MC(-)/US-S(-), respectively (p < 0.001).

The HCC surveillance failure was not rare in clinical practice. These data suggest that special attention for surveillance failure might be needed for patients with MC who receive US-S.