Factors associated with recurrence and survival in liver transplant patients with HCC--a single center retrospective study.

INTRODUCTION: Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common primary tumor of the liver and is diagnosed in more than a half million people worldwide each year. This study aims to assess factors associated with the recurrence and survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver transplantation in a cohort of patients from Medellín, Colombia.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a descriptive retrospective study of a consecutive series of liver transplant patients from the Pablo Tobon Uribe Hospital of Medellín from January 2004 to May 2013. Demographic, clinical, imaging, and pathology variables were analyzed.

RESULTS: Three hundred thirty liver transplants were performed during the study period, 54 cases (16.4%) had one or more hepatocellular carcinomas in the explant, and 79.6% of these patients were men. Cirrhotic patients had different etiologies, but most of them were due to alcohol abuse (22.2%), followed by hepatitis B virus infection (20.4 %), and hepatitis C virus infection (18.5%). In the pathology specimen, 51.9% had only one focus of hepatocellular carcinoma, 22.2% had two foci and 12.9% had three tumors. Recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma occurred in 7.4% patients with an average time of 81 months. During follow-up, 25.9% of the patients died in an average time of 67.9 months (CI95 59.1-80.1 months).

CONCLUSION: Recurrence and survival of patients with liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma in this study had a similar behavior as that reported in the world literature. The factors associated with these outcomes were vascular invasion, poor tumor differentiation and satellitosis.