Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. May 27, 2025; 17(5): 101605
Published online May 27, 2025. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v17.i5.101605
Multidisciplinary treatment strategies for the assessment of immune, coagulation, and biomarker responses after transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma
Tian Song, Kan-Hua Wu, Hao Yang, Wen-Li Xie, Lan Shen
Tian Song, Kan-Hua Wu, Hao Yang, Wen-Li Xie, Lan Shen, Department of Radiology, Hua Dong Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China
Co-first authors: Tian Song and Kan-Hua Wu.
Author contributions: Song T, Wu KH and Yang H designed this study; Song T, Wu KH, Xie WL and Shen L analyzed the data; Song T and Wu KH wrote manuscript and contributed equally as co-first authors; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of Hua Dong Hospital, Fudan University.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tian Song, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Radiology, Hua Dong Hospital, Fudan University, No. 221 West Yan’an Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai 200040, China. st13032174848@163.com
Received: December 20, 2024
Revised: February 6, 2025
Accepted: March 18, 2025
Published online: May 27, 2025
Processing time: 153 Days and 18.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Currently, there is a notable lack of reliable studies evaluating the impact of multidisciplinary treatment strategies following transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) on patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), underscoring the urgent need for higher-level research in this area.

AIM

To investigate the association of multidisciplinary treatment strategies with the immunological, coagulation, and tumor biomarker responses after post-TACE in HCC.

METHODS

This retrospective analysis included 100 patients with HCC who were categorized based on the treatment approach into the control (patients treated with TACE alone) and experimental groups (patients receiving multidisciplinary treatment strategies post-TACE). Participant characteristics, short-term efficacy, and safety assessment as well as immunological, coagulation, and tumor biomarker responses between the two groups were collected and compared.

RESULTS

Compared with the control group, the experimental group demonstrated a superior overall response rate, along with an increased fibrinogen, markedly improved immunological biomarker, lower prothrombin time, thrombin time, alpha-fetoprotein, carcinoembryonic antigen, and carbohydrate antigen 199 levels, as well as a decreased abnormal prothrombin incidence, and a lower overall rate of adverse reactions. Notably, no significant difference in the activated partial thromboplastin time and D-dimer levels was observed between the two groups.

CONCLUSION

Multidisciplinary treatment strategies post-TACE have improved the treatment outcome, the immunological response, and the coagulation function, lowered the tumor biomarker response levels, and reduced the risk of adverse reactions in patients with HCC.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Transarterial chemoembolization; Multidisciplinary treatment strategies; Coagulation; Tumor biomarker

Core Tip: Given the suboptimal efficacy of single-treatment modalities for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, this study proposes comprehensive multidisciplinary treatment strategies for HCC patients post-transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). Through multidimensional assessments including patient characteristics, short-term efficacy and safety evaluations, as well as immune, coagulation, and tumor biomarker responses, the study demonstrates that the multidisciplinary approach enhances treatment outcomes, improves immune responses and coagulation functions, reduces tumor biomarker levels, and decreases the risk of adverse reactions in post-TACE HCC patients. These findings contribute to the development of more favorable treatment strategies for improving survival outcomes in HCC patients post-TACE and may offer more effective clinical guidance for implementing multidisciplinary treatment or nursing strategies.