Association of socioeconomics, surgical therapy, and survival of early stage hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Underutilization of potential curative surgical treatment remains a problem in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Demographic and socioeconomic disparities continue to be important factors impacting utilization patterns, and exact mechanisms underlying these disparities remain largely unclarified. Focusing on these mechanisms provides us with a potential approach to improve survival of HCC patients.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Database to assess patients with early stage HCC diagnosed between January 2004 and December 2012. Demographic and socioeconomic factors were analyzed to assess associations with utilization of treatment, stage of presentation, and disease-specific survival by means of multinominal and Cox regression.

RESULTS: A total of 13,694 patients were included in the analysis of which only 6239 (45.6%) underwent surgical treatment for early stage HCC. Surgical treatment options consisted of 1445 liver resections (10.6%), 2121 liver transplantations (15.5%), and 2673 liver ablations (19.5%). The rate of surgical treatment fell from 56.1% in 2004 to 37.8% in 2012. Compared with no surgical therapy, African Americans were less likely to undergo liver transplantation (relative risk ratio [RRR] = 0.54; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.36-0.79) than Caucasian patients and more likely to undergo surgical resection (RRR = 1.67; 95% CI, 1.13-2.48). Patients from the Pacific West were less likely to be transplanted versus patients from the Southeast (RRR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.50-0.93). Also, patients who were married (RRR = 2.44; 95% CI, 1.96-3.04) or had health insurance (RRR = 4.74; 95% CI, 1.66-13.6) were more likely to receive liver transplantation. Young age (hazard ratio = 1.02; 95% CI, 1.00-1.03; P = 0.025) and positive marital status (hazard ratio = 0.71; 95% CI, 0.55-0.92; P = 0.010) both were independently associated with increased disease-specific survival.

CONCLUSIONS: An increasing proportion of patients with early stage HCC did not undergo surgical therapy between 2004 and 2012. Demographic and socioeconomic factors were associated with different treatment modality utilization after controlling for available confounders. Of these factors, age and marital status were independently associated with increased disease-specific survival.