Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Portal Vein Tumor Thrombus versus Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Biliary Tumor Thrombus: Better or Worse Prognoses? [Letter]

Abstract

Jin-Kai Feng, Ju-Xian Sun, Zong-Han Liu, Shu-Qun Cheng Department of Hepatic Surgery VI, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Shu-Qun ChengEastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Second Military Medical University, 225 Changhai Road, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of ChinaTel [phone]Fax [phone]Email [email protected] Dear editorWe read with great interest the recently published article in Cancer Management and Research by Yang et al, 1 in which they conducted a retrospective study to compare the long-term prognosis between hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) and those with bile duct tumor thrombus (BDTT). The authors reported that HCC patients with BDTT had worse overall survival (OS) and a higher tumor recurrence rate compared to patients with PVTT. This article, with its novelty and clinical implication, adds to the current knowledge and provides the rationale for further study to assess the prognostic differences among HCC patients with distinct types of tumor thrombus. However, we would like to raise the following concerns.First, the number of patients in this study is too small to draw a conclusive result regarding whether the prognosis of BDTT patients is inferior or superior to that of PVTT patients. Sufficient sample size is a critical factor to guarantee the validity and credibility of scientific reports. Therefore, we suggest the authors enlarge the sample size.   View the original paper by Yang and colleaguesA Response to Letter has been published for this article.  

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• portal vein tumor thrombus
• bile duct tumor thrombus
• prognosis