Unresectable Hepatoblastoma, Living Donation and Pre-Transplant Factors Associated with Event-Free Survival

Main Article Content

Joao Seda Neto, MD, PHD Flavia H. Feier, MD, PHD Renata Pugliese, MD, PHD Helry L. Candido, MD Gilda Porta, MD, PHD Irene K. Miura, MD, PHD Paulo Chapchap, MD, PHD Eduardo A. Fonseca, MD, PHD

Abstract

Background: The mainstays of irresectable hepatoblastoma (HB) treatment are surgical resection and cisplatin based (CB) chemotherapy (CHT). However, adequate patient selection is a key to achieve acceptable disease-free survival in patients with unresectable HB undergoing liver transplantation (LT).


Procedure: This single-center retrospective analysis of 28 children with HB submitted to LDLT from 1996 to 2019 aimed at determining the pre-transplant factors associated with worse post-transplant event-free survival. The clinical variables collected were gender, age, PELD score (Pediatric End-Stage Liver Disease scoring system), type of neoadjuvant CHT (CB versus other regimens), pre- and post- CHT AFP levels, %AFP reduction post CHT (AFP pre-CHT – AFP post- CHT /AFP pre- CHT), PRETEXT stage, primary versus rescue LDLT, time between diagnosis and LDLT, presence of metastases at diagnosis, follow-up time.


Results: Patients were divided in groups according to the occurrence of the event (recurrence/death) after LDLT – 10 patients in the event-yes and 18 patients in the event-no. Probability of 5-y event-free survival was 63.9%. AFP reduction < 70% (HR=4.33, 95%CI 1.1 to 16.95, p=0.03), and time from diagnosis to LT > 12 months (HR=4.11, 95%CI 1.14 to 14.76, p=0.03) were associated with higher recurrence/death in the Cox regression analysis. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) reduction post-CHT > 70% had a good performance in determining disease-free survival, with a calculated AUC of 0.8.


Conclusion: LT for HB is the preferred treatment option for unresectable HB, with no distant metastasis and adequate response to CHT. AFP reduction < 70%, and time from diagnosis to LT > 12 months were associated with higher recurrence/death However, due to the limited number of patients in this study, a larger number of patients is required to corroborate these findings.

Keywords: liver transplantation, hepatoblastoma, children, outcomes, living donation

Article Details

How to Cite
NETO, Joao Seda et al. Unresectable Hepatoblastoma, Living Donation and Pre-Transplant Factors Associated with Event-Free Survival. Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 10, n. 6, june 2022. ISSN 2375-1924. Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/2872>. Date accessed: 28 mar. 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v10i6.2872.
Section
Research Articles

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