Abstract
Since 1967, 27 hepatoblastomas and 3 hepatocellular carcinomas in 30 childhood patients have been treated in our clinic with a 10-year suvival rate of 43.0%. Twenty three of these 30 patients underwent hepatectomy. A 10-year survival rate was 51.7% in total of these tumor resected cases, but was 65.2% in curatively resected cases and was 0% in non-resected cases. Five cases with an initially unresectable tumor, or with recurrent or metastatic tumors received "second look" or "delayed primary" operation after chemotherapy. Three of these 5 patients, whose tumor was histologically mixed mesenchymal type hepatoblastoma, were cured of disease completely. A questionnaire on childhood primary liver carcinoma was sent to all the councilors of the Japanese Society of Pediatric Surgeons, and a total of 535 primary liver malignancies, such as 417 hepatoblastomas and 79 hepatocellular carcinomas, were collected from 97 institutes. A 10-year survival rate was 32.3% in total cases,50.6% in tumor resected cases, 63.2% in curatively resected cases, and was 1.4% in non-resected cases. The significant prognostic factors in this series were the histology of tumor, the age of patient, and the stage of disease. A hepatoblastoma with a mixed mesenchymal type histology may be worthy to aggressively even if the tumor is unresectable.
