Dr Kokudo: In my country, deceased liver donors are very few - around 70 cases per year. Waiting time is around two years, so this is not feasible for patients with liver cancer to wait that time. So most of the liver transplantation for liver cancer is done with living donor liver transplantation. We do 400 cases per year and out of those, 100 cases have liver cancer.
Dr Kokudo: All we can do is patient selection. We have selection criteria called the 5-5 Rule - up to five centimeters, five nodules - and tumor markers such as alpha-fetoprotein and PIKVA-II should be lower. Also in Japan, we are preparing a publication outlining our national criteria, which will include the 5-5 rule plus alpha-fetoprotein.
Dr Kokudo: I am not a hepatologist, so I don’t treat hepatitis. But according to our data, for hepatitis C patients, if the viral load is controlled (zero or lower), the patient outcomes are very good. For patients with single, up to 5cm nodules, the five-year survival rate is over 70%. In the case of hepatitis B, we don’t have much data, but I think it is the general understanding that viral hepatitis should be controlled using the very recently available drugs.
Dr Kokudo: I have to say that radioembolization is not available in Japan because of very strict regulations. The mainstay for tumor recurrence for surgeons is repeated liver resection and we have published a paper showing that even after the third or fourth liver resection, the outcomes are still acceptable. According to the outcomes of a recent randomized trial comparing sorafenib to radioembolization, I was very disappointed that there is no advantage. I hope there will be some subpopulation of patients who would benefit from this treatment.