The short-term efficacy of no-touch radiofrequency ablation in treating cirrhosis-based small hepatocellular carcinoma

BackgroundRadiofrequency ablation (RFA) for the treatment of small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a drawback of high recurrence rate. No-touch technique was developed to overcome it. However, it has barely been studied in Chinese populations. The aim of this study is to determine the safety and efficacy of no-touch RFA in the treatment of cirrhosis-based small HCC patients.MethodsA total of 130 patients of small HCC in Southwest Hospital were enrolled in this study, 46 cases treated by no-touch RFA and 84 cases by conventional RFA. Treatment complications and tumor-free survival rate and overall survival rate were compared and analyzed.ResultsThere were no significant differences in baseline confounding factors between the two groups. The ablation volume of no-touch RFA technique was significantly higher than conventional RFA (P=0.002) but the remaining liver volume and treatment complications of the two techniques were the same (P=0.702 and P=0.269, respectively). Cox regression model revealed that conventional RFA was a predictive factor for short-term HCC recurrence (P=0.041 for 2-year recurrence rate). Kaplan-Meier survival showed that tumor-free survival in no-touch group was significantly higher than conventional group (P=0.047).ConclusionsOur data showed that no-touch RFA provided a higher short-term tumor-free survival rate than conventional RFA but was as safe as conventional RFA.