Managing Focal Nodular Hyperplasia of the Liver: Surgery or Minimally-invasive Approaches? A Review of the Preferable Treatment Options

Background/aim: Focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) is the second most common benign tumor of the liver. As of 2017, many clinical, radiological and surgical features have been largely documented. On the other hand, little is still known about the correlation of FNH with hepatocellular carcinoma, nor the preferable modality of treatment. Our aim was to elucidate the latter topic.

Materials and methods: We investigated the pertinent literature available as of 2017 through four popular search engines (PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar). Four main approaches were selected: conservative treatment, surgery, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and transarterial embolization (TAE).

Results: We found most works to be on conservative and surgical approaches. On the contrary, only one article has been published for RFA to date. Seventeen articles dealt with TAE.

Conclusion: TAE currently represents the most cogent and successful alternative to surgery.