Abstract

Background: Worldwide, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver neoplasm, represents the fifth most common cancer in the world, and the third most common cause of cancer-related death. Surveillance has been found to be an effective tool to detect early tumors and expand the applicability of these curative treatment options. Present study was aimed to compare impact of surveillance versus non-surveillance strategy on hepatocellular carcinoma staging & survival at a tertiary hospital. Material and Methods: Present study was single-center, prospective, observational, comparative study, conducted in patients of hepatocellular carcinoma with underlying chronic liver disease,. Study population was divided into Group A (detected to have HCC, after at least one year of screening protocol) & group B (had HCC at the time of presentation, but was not on any screening protocol). Results: Among 108 patients of hepatocellular carcinoma, 24 patients in group A & 84 patients in group B were studied. There was no significant difference in mean age, gender distribution, comorbidities & addictions of both groups. 66.67% patients in group A were detected in early BCLC stage(stage 0,A,B) whereas only 9.76% patients in group B were detected in early BCLC stage, surveillance leads to early detection of HCC in our cohort (p- 0.00013). Overall median survival in 73 patients who were treated was 12 months whereas median survival in untreated patients was only 4 month. We observed significant improvement of survival in surveillance group as compared to non-surveillance group. Patients detected at early stages had significantly better survival than those detected at late stages. Patients who were treated for HCC has significantly better survival than untreated patients (p < 0.0001)

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