An Overview of Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Insufficient Radiofrequency Ablation

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a commonly used treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), however, various complex conditions in clinical practice may lead to insufficient radiofrequency ablation (IRFA), allowing residual HCC to survive. In clinical practice and laboratory models, IRFA plays an important role in rapid tumor progression. Therefore, targeting the residual HCC and avoiding IRFA were worthwhile methods. A deeper understanding of IRFA is required; IRFA contributes to the improvement of proliferative activity, migration rates, and invasive capacity, and this may be due to the involvement of multiple complex processes or proteins, including epithelial mesenchymal transitions (EMTs), cancer stem cells (CSCs), autophagy, heat shock proteins (HSPs), changes of non-tumor cells and extracellular matrix, altered immune microenvironment, hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs), growth factors, epigenetic alterations, and metabolic reprogramming. We focus on the processes of the above mechanisms and possible therapeutic approach, with a review of the literature. Additionally, we recapitulated the construction methods of various experimental models of IRFA (in vivo and in vitro).