A study of therapy for pediatric hepatoblastoma: Prevention and treatment of pulmonary metastasis

Our results of treatment for pediatric hepatoblastoma are presented with special emphasis on pulmonary metastasis. The pulmonary metastasis rate of hepatoblastoma was 44 % (11/25). In 19 patients with resected hepatoblastomas, the 5-year survival rate without pulmonary metastasis was 90 % (9/10); while with pulmonary metastasis it was 22 % (2/9). Six patients with unresected hepatoblastomas all died within 4 months regardless of chemotherapy and/or metastasis. To improve survival in patients with hepatoblastoma, preoperative or postoperative chemotherapy was thought to be essential for tumors extending over 2 hepatic segments and having predictable factors for pulmonary metastasis (large size or histological evidence of capsular invasion). A long-term multidisciplinary approach including hepatic lobectomy, current multiagent chemotherapy (including CDDP, THP-ADR), and partial pulmonary resection for localized lung areas with metastases would ultimately be needed.