Hyun Seok Lee, et al. Liver function deterioration after radiofrequency ablation liver function after RFA therapy. Although the number of tumor, multiple ablation cycles, and advanced cirrhosis with Child-Pugh score more than 8 showed high odds ratio for deterioration of liver function, they failed to be statistically significant. On the other hand, sex, age, the underlying liver disease, presence of ascites, tumor size (≥2 cm), ablation time (≥20 minutes), bilirubin (≥1.1 mg/dL), ALT (≥80 IU/L), and AFP (≥100 mg/mL) were not signifi- cantly associated with deterioration of liver function. In multivari- ate analysis performed with variables with potential risk factors in univariate analysis, pre-RFA platelet count (≤70,000/mm3) was the only significant factor identified as a factor increasing risk for deterioration of liver function (Table 2). Figure 1. Serial changes in serum albumin, bilirubin, platelet count, prothrombin time, and Child-Pugh score. DISCUSSION The present study evaluated serial changes in albumin, total bilirubin, PT, platelet count, and Child-Pugh score over the course of 12 months following RFA therapy. We identified risk factors for short term deterioration of liver function after RFA therapy. Our findings demonstrated that albumin significantly decreased and Child-Pugh score significantly increased in 12 months after RFA. The decrease in serum albumin is considered to be related to three mechanisms. The first is loss of normal liver parenchymal volume after tumor ablation. The second is inhibition of albumin synthesis due to several inflammatory cytokines caused by abla- tion procedure. The inflammation from heat damage accelerates http://www.e-cmh.org http://dx.doi.org/10.3350/cmh.2012.18.3.302 305