Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Nov 6, 2016; 7(4): 477-489
Published online Nov 6, 2016. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v7.i4.477
Local ablative treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma: An updated review
Antonio Facciorusso, Gaetano Serviddio, Nicola Muscatiello
Antonio Facciorusso, Nicola Muscatiello, Gastroenterology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia, 71100 Foggia, Italy
Gaetano Serviddio, Internal Medicine Unit, University of Foggia, 71100 Foggia, Italy
Author contributions: Muscatiello N performed the bibliographic research; Facciorusso A wrote the paper; Serviddio G revised the manuscript; all the authors contributed to the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have received fees for serving as a speaker or are consultant/advisory board member for any organizations. None of the authors have received research funding from any organizations. None of the authors are employees of any organizations. None of the authors own stocks and/or share in any organizations. None of the authors own patents. None of the authors has conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Antonio Facciorusso, MD, Gastroenterology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia, Viale L. Pinto, 1, 71100 Foggia, Italy. antonio.facciorusso@virgilio.it
Telephone: +39-0881-732154 Fax: +39-0881-732135
Received: May 22, 2016
Peer-review started: May 23, 2016
First decision: July 4, 2016
Revised: July 16, 2016
Accepted: August 17, 2016
Article in press: August 19, 2016
Published online: November 6, 2016
Processing time: 161 Days and 10.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Ablative treatments currently represent the first-line option for the treatment of early stage unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. Among ablative therapies, radiofrequency ablation has gained a pivotal role due to its efficacy, with a reported 5-year survival rate of 40%-70%, and safety. Among other thermal treatments, microwave ablation, high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation, laser ablation, and cryoablation, are less investigated but showed promising results.