Radiofrequency ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma

We performed radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for 14 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) between May 2001 and March 2002. The underlying hepatic disease was type C liver cirrhosis in all patients. Seven patients had a solitary lesion, and 7 patients had multiple lesions. RFA was chosen for the primary tumor in 5 cases and for a recurrent tumor in 9 cases. Three cases of well differentiated HCC were included. Transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) was performed in 10 cases simultaneously. Nine patients received RFA under general anesthesia (open laparotomy: 5 cases, transthoracic: 1 case, CT guided: 2 cases, US guided: 1 case) and 5 patients under local anesthesia (CT guided: 2 cases, US guided: 3 cases). RFA was performed for 12 minutes in each session and the mean number of sessions per patient was 3.2. Excellent ablation was achieved in all cases according CT evaluation, and no additional therapy was needed. No recurrences have been found in any cases so far. RFA for HCC achieved excellent therapeutic effect in combination with other therapies as multimodal therapy.