Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of death from cancer in men and the sixth most common cause in women worldwide. Fortunately, significant improvement in prognosis of HCC has been noted from increasing early diagnosis of HCC since the introduction of surveillance and from outstanding progress in various treatment modalities. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) effectively controls by temperature changes from high-frequency alternating current via electrodes placed within the tissue to achieve coagulation necrosis and tissue desiccation. RFA has been commonly applied as an alternative curative therapy to surgical resection for small HCC due to effective local tumor control. Several previous studies comparing the outcomes of surgery and RFA for HCC have reported variable results probably caused by differences in the study protocol. We compared indication, limitation, therapeutic results of partial hepatectomy and percutaneous RFA to provide better understanding of current status of the two treatment modality and hopefully to give some useful advices for setting up treatment strategy.

• Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma․Radiofrequency ablation․Surgery