[Treatment of malignant liver tumors in children: evaluation and prospects]

Rather discouraging in the past, treatment of malignant tumors in children allows today a 75% cure rate for hepatoblastoma. Complete surgical resection remains the ongoing basis of the treatment, but the main advances are due to more efficient chemotherapy protocols using cisplatin, to an improvement in imaging procedures, to modern techniques of anesthaesia, to aggressive surgery and treatment of metastases, and finally to liver transplantation when the extension of the tumor precludes total resection in the absence of metastasis. The management of children with malignant tumors should be performed in selected centres participating in collaborative protocols, therefore providing the best oncological and surgical standards and the possibility of liver transplantation if necessary.