Follow-up
Thirty-four patients were followed up successfully, with a follow-up rate of 97.1%. After average follow up of 37.26 ± 29.84 months (range, 4-124 months), 28/35 patients were still alive, and 26 of them were disease free. The 5-year overall survival (OS) rate was79.2%; the 5-year event-free survival (EFS) rate was 73.7% (Fig. 1). According to the classification of tumor margin distance, the 5-year overall survival rates of the tumors with margin > 1cm, 0.5-1cm, < 0.5cm and close to the tumor margin were 100%, 78.0%, 83.3% and 53.3%, respectively (P=0.371; Fig 2).
Seven patients developed recurrence, of whom 3 had hepatic local recurrence, 3 had multiple pulmonary metastases and 1 had bone metastases. All recurrence occurred within 1 year after tumor resection and 5 patients died due to disease progression. The average time to recurrence was 6±3.96 months (range, 1–12 months). Of the all recurrence patients, 3 had tumor margin within 0.5-1 cm, 1had tumor margin < 0.5 cm and 3 cases had close to tumor margin (Table 3). There was no statistical difference in the recurrence rate of different tumor margin (P=0.932). In addition to irregular hepatectomy, other surgical procedures have tumor recurrence (Table 3), but there is no significant difference in the recurrence rate of different surgical procedures (P=0.352).