Chemotherapy or Not, Following Complete Treatment of Hepatic Cancer in Cirrhotic Patients
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2008-11-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Besides liver transplantation, the curative treatment of primary hepatic cancer with
cirrhosis remains the surgical resection. Radiofrequency or cryotherapy currently allow local
ablation of small cancer, with very good results. However, all these treatments are followed
by high rates of recurrence (50 - 70% at 5 years). Then, it seems essential to associate to
the surgical resection or to the local ablation as "adjuvant" treatment, in order to prevent
or to decrease the rate of recurrence. However, no evidence supports this attitude.
Therefore, following curative treatment of primary hepatic cancer with cirrhosis, we propose
to compare treated to untreated patients. Postoperative treatment means either intra-arterial
chemotherapy or systemic chemotherapy. The main criterion of the study is time of survival
without recurrence. The main secondary objective is the safety.