Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may recur after liver transplantation (LT), mainly
in patients with multinodular and large tumors. However, factors predictive of
outcome after LT in patients with small tumors remain ill defined. We
investigated which factors were related to mortality or tumor recurrence among 47
liver transplant recipients with liver cirrhosis and HCC and compared them with
107 patients with liver cirrhosis without tumor who underwent LT in the same
period. Patients with HCC were older (P <.001), more frequently had cirrhosis of
a viral origin (P <.001), and had lower Child-Pugh scores (P <.001) than patients
without tumor. Survival of patients with and without tumor was not significantly
different (P =.20). Among patients with HCC, those with lower recurrence-free
survival rates had liver cirrhosis of a viral origin, vascular invasion, bilobar
disease, and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage IV. At multivariate analysis, the
only factor associated with mortality or recurrence was TNM stage IV (P =.02).
Our results suggest that in patients with HCC and TNM stage IV, LT might be
contraindicate