Surgical Treatment of Hepatocholangiocarcinoma: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Hepatocholangiocarcinoma (HCC-CC) is a rare liver malignancy that contains features of both hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and mass-forming cholangiocarcinoma (MFCCC). Three classification systems for HCC-CC are described in literature and the majority of these tumors appear to be of the transitional type. The aim of this study is to evaluate the characteristics of transitional HCC-CC and to compare long-term oncological outcomes with HCC and MFCCC in surgically treated patients.

Summary: A systematic literature search was conducted to identify relevant studies analyzing demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with transitional HCC-CC and evaluating treatments and outcomes associated with this neoplasm. Only comparative, retrospective analyses were included. A total of 14 studies, involving 13,613 patients with primary liver malignancy, were analyzed. All patients underwent surgery, either liver resection or transplantation. Four hundred and thirty-seven patients were affected by transitional HCC-CC (3.2%). For further analysis, patients with transitional HCC-CC were divided into 2 groups, the resection group and the transplantation group. Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of these patients were analyzed and compared to long-term oncological outcomes of patients with HCC and/or MFCCC, who underwent the same treatment. In the resection group, DFS rate at 5-year was 15, 31.6, and 20.3% for patients with transitional HCC-CC, HCC, and MFCCC, respectively; OS rate at 5-year was 32.7, 47.5, and 30.3% for patients with transitional HCC-CC, HCC, and MFCCC, respectively. In the transplantation group, DFS rate at 5-year was 40.9 and 87.4% for patients with transitional HCC-CC and HCC, respectively; OS rate at 5-year was 49.4 and 80.3% for patients with transitional HCC-CC and HCC, respectively.

Key messages: Transitional HCC-CC patients have significantly worse DFS and OS rates compared to HCC patients in both the resection group and the transplantation group. However, in the resection group, both DFS and OS rates of transitional HCC-CC patients are not statistically different from those of MFCCC patients.

Keywords: Cholangiocarcinoma; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Hepatocholangiocarcinoma; Liver neoplasms.

Fig. 1

Selection of studies. This flow-chart details the process used for the selection of studies included in the systematic review. Initially, the literature search yielded 774 studies. Seven hundred and six studies were excluded because they did not report transitional HCC-CC characteristics, surgical treatment or survival outcomes. Fifty-four duplicate, non-comparative, not specifying the classification system, not in English language, published before 2002 studies were excluded. Eventually, 14 studies were selected and analyzed by the authors. HCC-CC, hepatocholangiocarcinoma.