Partial hepatectomy for spontaneous tumor rupture in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: a retrospective cohort study

Background: The impact of ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on a patients outcome after hepatic resection remains insufficient. We aimed to identify the independent predictive factors of spontaneous tumor rupture (STR) for curative resection of HCC and to investigate the impact of STR of HCC on long-term survival after resection. Patients and methods: The clinicopathological parameters of 106 patients with ruptured HCC and 201 patients with non-ruptured HCC who underwent hepatic resection from 2007 to 2011 were investigated. Clinical features and factors associated with the clinical outcomes were compared between both groups. Results: Of 774 HCC patients who underwent surgical resection, 106 (13.7%) had tumor rupture. Multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis revealed hypertension, liver cirrhosis, total bilirubin (TB), tumor size and ascites to be independent prognostic factors for patients with ruptured HCC. The overall survival (OS) of patients in the ruptured HCC group was significantly poorer compared with those in the non-ruptured HCC group. The 1-, 3-and 5-year OS rates were 77.7%, 56.9% and 41.6%, respectively, in the non-ruptured HCC group and 37.7%, 19.7%, 14.%, respectively, in the ruptured HCC group (P< 0.001). Similar OS rates were found in patients with non-ruptured and ruptured HCC; patients in the non-ruptured HCC group had a significantly better recurrence-free survival (RFS) rate compared with those in the ruptured group (P=0.016). Conclusion: The presence of hypertension, liver cirrhosis, higher TB levels, tumor size > 5 cm and ascites are the independent indicators of poorer prognosis for patients undergoing hepatic resection after ruptured HCC. The present study confirmed that tumor rupture itself had a negative impact on patient survival, but hepatic resection, when technically feasible, is safe and appropriate in selected patients and can result in OS and RFS rates comparable to that of patients with non-ruptured HCC.