Resection for hepatocellular carcinoma with hepatic vein tumour thrombus: Pushing the limits beyond the guidelines frontiers
Authors: Daniel Azoulay
Journal: Journal of Hepatology (2014)

Surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma associated with hepatic vein tumor thrombosisJournal of HepatologyVol. 61Issue 3PreviewPresence of hepatic vein tumor thrombosis (HVTT) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is regarded as signaling an extremely poor prognosis. However, little is known about the prognostic impact of surgical treatment for HVTT. Full-Text PDF The paper by Kokudo et al. [[1]Kokudo T. Hasegawa K. Yamamoto S. Shindo J. Takemura N. Aoki T. et al.Surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma associated with hepatic vein thrombosis.J Hepatol. 2014; 61: 583-588Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (105) Google Scholar] in this issue of the Journal of Hepatology timely shakes up the BCLC guidelines for the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), raised by certain as absolute dogma, despite the proponents of these guidelines themselves as shown by the successive modifications they regularly propose. The “Kokudos” (son and father) and co-workers analyse here a retrospective series of 187 consecutive liver resections for HCC extending to the hepatic veins. Precisely, the study includes 153 patients with microscopic invasion of the hepatic veins, by definition unknown before surgery, 21 with macroscopic major hepatic vein invasions, and 13 with tumour thrombus into the inferior vena cava. These 3 subgroups represent 10.0%, 1.3%, and 0.9%, respectively, of all consecutive HCC (1525 cases) operated during a 17 years period (1994–2011) at one of the most prestigious Japanese liver surgery tertiary centres. The main interesting subgroup concerns patients with macroscopic tumour thrombus in the main hepatic veins or the vena cava known before the decision to proceed for surgery (2.2% of operated HCC). Excellent results could be achieved for this highly selected subset of severe patients (38.2% with cirrhosis, 14.7% with portal hypertension) with advanced disease (88.2% with combined portal vein tumour thrombus and 26.5% with ⩾3 tumours): the 90 days mortality rate was 5% and the median survival time was 3.95 years! Multivariate analysis revealed tumour thrombus in the vena cava and R1/R2 resection as risk factors for the overall survival. These surgeons-authors must be commended for their pugnacity and their willingness to share this experience in a journal of hepatology, i.e., the eponym “Journal of Hepatology”. The latter point is important. Indeed in our numerous discussions at multidisciplinary team meetings with our colleagues and hepatologist friends, all will acknowledge that the latter write, read, and quote almost exclusively papers from the literature of their specialty and the very same “scotoma” is valuable for the liver surgeons. In other terms, daily, hepatologists and liver surgeons have a dialogue of deaf relying on an evidently-biased analysis of the so-called evidence-based medicine. Of course for a hepatologist the evidence level of the study by Kokudo et al. is low: What about the control group? Maybe the patients reported here are simply harvesting low progressing tumours with a spontaneous fair survival? … However, if the prospective randomised study comparing resection vs. sorafenib the reference treatment in this setting of BCLC C patients is ever done, its results will probably not be applicable to the real life for many well-known reasons. This means that we eagerly await new methodological tools maybe such as big health care data analysis or propensity-score methods to answer to the question with a higher level of evidence. An individualised prognostic score model might be one solution. While submitting this point of view, I will take the opportunity to share some additional comments. Since the Okuda classification reported in 1984, more than 10 classifications of HCC have been reported including the CLIP (1998), GRETCH and BCLC (1999), CUPI and sTNM (2002), JIS (2003), Tokyo (2005), AJCC/UICC 7th ed (2010), Taipe (2010). The absence of even one common criteria to all these classifications is noteworthy as well as the absence of any classification regrouping all prognostic factors: the quest of the Holy Grail remains opened, not mentioning the impact of tumour and peri-tumoral genetics and epigenetics maybe that remain to be implemented in these models. The BCLC has been endorsed by the AASLD and the EASL, is widely used in Europe and North America but is not in Asia. Finally these guidelines are based on a 15 years old study and drew its conclusion from 77 patients resected for HCC. The main caveat of all guidelines is that they target the longest possible survival following surgery for the ideal candidates. Beyond the definition of palliative care (a total of 37 English and 26 German definitions were identified in a systematic review) it would be interesting to have assessment of functional symptoms before resection such as fatigue, pain and their fate after surgery, and of the quality of life of resected patients compared to those receiving sorafenib. The rigidity, of BCLC management algorithm, co-substantial to any guidelines, should be relaxed by surgical side paths for selected subsets of patients and even for individual patients, achieving better survival compared to the reference treatment, namely TACE or radioembolisation for BCLC B and sorafenib for BCLC C patients. As an example, we can compare 2 patients with the same diagnosis of HCC. Both are BCLC C for portal vein tumour thrombus. The first patient is 74 years old, asymptomatic and has a body mass index of 35 kg/m2 but sarcopenia measured on CT scan. The other patient is a 54-year old woman with a body mass index of 21 kg/m2 and no sarcopenia but severe right upper abdominal pain due to intra-tumoral haemorrhage. The same medical standards in terms of oncology, surgery, and anaesthesiology should be applied in these 2 cases, but obviously in the first case it is more difficult to propose resection compared to the second one. The above-mentioned side paths might benefit from neo-adjuvant and adjuvant treatments including the optimisation of the nutritional status, the control of portal hypertension, the downsizing-downstaging of the tumour burden, and the virosuppression of hepatitis. All this to allow surgery for more patients with portal hypertension, multiple tumors, portal and/or HV tumour thrombus. As well, the possibility of re-hepatectomy and liver transplantation (as a bridge or as a salvage procedure) should be included in the decision process. This emphasises besides the obvious impacts of hospital and surgeon volume on the outcome, the utmost importance to manage patients with potentially resectable HCC in highly specialised centres able (1) to evaluate and optimise the patient status and particularly his nutrition, (2) to offer all available treatments to obviate the choice of treatment bias, (3) to master multimodality management including systemic and intra-arterial treatments, (4) to evaluate the underlying liver parenchyma beyond the Child Turcotte and MELD classifications such as ICG clearance test and scintigraphic assessment of liver function, (5) to optimise the future remnant liver by portal vein embolisation, (6) to resect with both minimum bleeding and minimum ischemia-reperfusion minimum injury using techniques and approach both oncological such as anterior approach and mini invasive such as laparoscopic and laparoscopic robot assisted maybe in the future. In practice, the surgical approach should be determined on a patient-by-patient basis according to the individual risk and following the “3 rules – 3 objectives” of liver surgery. The 3 rules are: (1) adapt the resection to the disease and not to the surgeon’s skills; (2) spare parenchymal liver to leave sufficient remnant functional liver and to anticipate the potential need for re-hepatectomy or transplantation; and (3) balance haemorrhage with its short- and long-term prognostic impacts on the one hand and vascular clamping with subsequent I/R injury on the other. The 3 objectives are: (1) decrease morbidity and mortality rates; (2) improve long-term survival; and (3) increase the number of resectable patients. In the field of HCC and under the former guidance of M. Makuuchi, the Tokyo group “performed yesterday the surgery of today and performs today the surgery of the edge of tomorrow”. Our multidisciplinary team meetings are allowed to cut the Gordian knot of the aporetic dilemma: individualised treatment on one hand vs. guidelines and evidence based medicine on the other hand might be reconciled. The right of experts is to set the rules (not too simple to remain true, not too complex to be applicable), the duty of the same experts is to break the rules to propose in the field of liver surgery for HCC the equivalent of the metro-ticket model for liver transplantation for the same disease. If we keep strictly obeying the same rules, the obtained results will remain the same: up to 1 million deaths yearly due to HCC worldwide. The author declared that he does not have anything to disclose regarding funding or conflict of interest with respect to this manuscript.