The findings of the present study indicated that the overall and recurrence free survivals were the same for patients with a single HCC ≤ 3 cm in diameter treated with either PRFA or SR. In addition, PRFA was demonstrated to have an advantage over SR in causing less serious adverse events and a shorter hospitalization length. Figure 5 Cumulative recurrence free survival rate between percutaneous radiofrequency thermal ablation (PRFA) group patients with liver cirrhosis (LC) (n = 127) and surgical resection (SR) group patients with liver cirrhosis (LC) (n = 50). The 1-, 3-and 5-year recurrence free survival rates after PRFA and SR were 86.0%, 35.0% and 14.8%, respectively in the PRFA group with LC and 79.5%, 39.3% and 23.8%, respectively in the SR group with LC. There was no significant differences between these two groups as determined using the log-rank test (P = 0.669).