Impact of Surveillance in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients on Long-Term Outcomes After Curative Liver Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Background: Clinical guidelines recommend surveillance in high-risk population to early detect hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), when curative treatment such as liver resection can be applied. However, it is largely unknown whether surveillance would provide long-term survival benefits to these high-risk patients who have received curative liver resection for HCC. Methods: A prospectively maintained database on patients with chronic hepatitis B infection who underwent curative liver resection for HCC from 2003 to 2014 was reviewed. Patients’ overall survival and recurrence were compared between the groups of patients whose HCCs were diagnosed by surveillance or non-surveillance, as well as between the groups of patients operated in the first (2003–2008) and second (2009–2014) 6-year periods. Results: Of 1075 chronic hepatitis B patients with HCC, 452 (42.0%) patients were diagnosed by preoperative surveillance. Compared with the non-surveillance group, the OS and RFS rates were significantly better in the surveillance group (both P < 0.001). Surveillance was associated with a 55% decrease in the overall survival risk and a 48% decrease in the recurrence risk (HR 0.45, 95% CI 0.38–0.53, and HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.44–0.61). Compared with the first period, a significant reduction of 12% and 19% in the overall death and recurrence risks, respectively, was observed in the second period (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.78–0.97, and HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.70–0.95). Conclusion: Surveillance for HCC was associated with favorable long-term overall and recurrence-free survival rates after curative liver resection of HCC in patients with chronic hepatitis B.