Multimodal therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma: the role of surgery

Liver cancer is one of the widest spread malignancies in the world and its incidence is still on the rise. The surgical resection of liver cancer has become a widely performed procedure with considerably improved outcomes, low mortality rate, transfusions, and post-op bed stay.

Our goal with this paper was to conduct a narrative review of the literature in regard to the surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

There are various modalities of treatment for the HCC, e.g., hepatic resection, LT, or radiofrequency ablation (RFA) - the selection of a specific treatment regimen plays a decisive role in the survival rate of the patient and this, in turn, is guided by factors like size and distribution of lesion and the stage of malignancy. A more efficient patient selection for each treatment increases the survival rate of the patients in each subgroup.

Surgical procedures play a crucial role in treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma as part of a multimodal therapy.