Clinical efficacy of microwave ablation and surgical resection for the treatment of early hepatocellular carcinoma: a Meta analysis

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy of microwave ablation and surgical resection for the treatment of early primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods The Cochrane Library, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, VIP database were searched with the key words of tumor, liver cancer, primary hepatic carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC, surgery, surgical, surgical resection, liver resection, hepatic resection, thermal ablation, percutaneous thermal ablation, microwave coagulation, microwave ablation,肝癌,原发性肝癌,肝细胞癌,手术,切除,手术切除,肝切除,微波,热消融,微波治疗,微波凝固,微波消融between the database establishment and February 2015. Chinese and English literatures on microwave ablation and surgical resection for the treatment of early primary HCC were retrieved, and data were extracted and analyzed by 2 independent researchers. All the patients were divided into the microwave ablation group and the surgical resection group. Measurement data were represented by the standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI), and count data were represented by the odds ratio (OR) and 95%CI. Heterogeneity of the publication was analyzed using the I2 test. Results Seven literature including 6 retrospective cohort studies and 1 randomized controlled trial were retrieved, and total sample size were 993 patients including 648 in the microwave ablation group and 345 in the surgical resection group. There were significant differences in the volume of blood loss and duration of postoperative hospital stay between the 2 groups (SMD=-5.03, -1.74, 95% CI: -6.21-3.85, -2.21- -1.28, P 0.05). Conclusions The safety, feasibility and clinical efficacy of microwave ablation for the treatment of early primary HCC is comparable to surgical resection, and microwave ablation has the advantages of lesser blood loss and shorter duration of hospital stay. Key words: Liver neoplasms, primary; Microwave ablation; Surgical therapy; Efficacy; Meta analysis