Anatomic resection improved the long-term outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with microvascular invasion:A prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND The long-term effect of anatomic resection(AR)is better than that of nonanatomic resection(NAR).At present,there is no study on microvascular invasion(MVI)and liver resection types.AIM To explore whether AR improves long-term survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)by removing the peritumoral MVI.METHODS A total of 217 patients diagnosed with HCC were enrolled in the study.The surgical margin was routinely measured.According to the stratification of different tumor diameters,patients were divided into the following groups:≤2 cm group,2-5 cm group,and>5 cm group.RESULTS In the 2-5 cm diameter group,the overall survival(OS)of MVI positive patients was significantly better than that of MVI negative patients(P=0.031).For the MVI positive patients,there was a statistically significant difference between AR and NAR(P=0.027).AR leads to a wider surgical margin than NAR(2.0±2.3 cm vs 0.7±0.5 cm,P<0.001).In the groups with tumor diameters<2 cm,both AR and NAR can obtain a wide surgical margin,and the surgical margins of AR are wider than that of NAR(3.5±5.8 cm vs 1.6±0.5 cm,P=0.048).In the groups with tumor diameters>5 cm,both AR and NAR fail to obtain wide surgical margin(0.6±1.0 cm vs 0.7±0.4 cm,P=0.491).CONCLUSION For patients with a tumor diameter of 2-5 cm,AR can achieve the removal of peritumoral MVI by obtaining a wide incision margin,reduce postoperative recurrence,and improve prognosis.