Background: The aim of our study was to compare the post-operative health-related quality of life in patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC; within the Milan criteria) after liver resection or liver transplantation.
Methods: From August 2000 to December 2010, 207 patients were diagnosed with early HCC within the Milan criteria. We divided these patients into 2 groups according to their curative schedule: the liver transplantation group (n = 95) and the liver resection group (n = 110). We compared the baseline characteristics of these 2 groups of patients, after which we focused on comparing the post-operative health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and psychological outcome in these 2 groups.
Results: The demographics of the patients in the 2 groups were similar, and there were no significant differences except for higher family income in the transplantation group (P = .002).With long-term follow-up, there were no significant differences in the 8 domains of the HRQOL and the 9 domains of the psychological outcome measure between the 2 groups. Both the transplantation and resection groups exhibited good outcomes in both HRQOL and psychological outcome measures.
Conclusions: Several years after operation, early-stage HCC patients who underwent liver transplantation or resection had similar long-term HRQOL and psychological outcomes.
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