Key clinical point: The long-term therapeutic outcomes of microwave ablation (MWA) are comparable to those of surgical resection (SR) in patients with subcapsular hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Major finding: The MWA vs SR group had significantly lower complication rates (51.2% vs 70.2%; P = .011), with no significant difference in the 5-year cumulative local tumor progression (16.4% vs 10.6%; P = .31), 5-year overall survival (73.0% vs 72.1%; P = .89), or 5-year disease-free survival (38.1% vs 32.3%; P = .43) rate.
Study details: This multicenter retrospective study included 84 patients with subcapsular HCC meeting the Milan criteria who underwent MWA and 84 propensity score-matched patients who underwent SR.
Disclosures: This study was sponsored by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, China. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Liu K et al. Microwave ablation versus surgical resection for subcapsular hepatocellular carcinoma: A propensity score-matched study of long-term therapeutic outcomes. Eur Radiol. 2022 (Sep 17). Doi: 10.1007/s00330-022-09135-1