Abstract:

 Objective To investigate the value of determining the half-life of alpha-fetoprotein（AFP） to screen for recurrence in patients treated by resection for hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC） in BCLC-A stage. Methods Medical records were retrospectively analyzed for 309 patients who underwent curative liver resection at our hospital from January 2007 to December 2012. Patients were assigned to an AFP-positive or-negative group based on AFP assay，and the two groups were compared in terms of tumor-free survival. Subgroup analysis was performed for patients showing different AFP half-lives. Results Median tumor-free survival time was 54.3 months in the AFP-positive group and 64.3 months in the AFP-negative group. Among AFP-positive patients， median tumor-free survival of those with an AFP half-life ≤5 days was 59.1 months， compared to 46.2 months for those with an AFP half-life >5 days （P=0.048）. Conclusions Prognosis after curative liver resection is worse for AFP-positive patients with HCC than for AFP-negative patients. Stratifying patients based on AFP half-life （≤5 or >5 days） may help predict prognosis in such patients.

Key words: Liver neoplasm, Hepatectomy, Alpha-fetoprotein, Half-life, Recurrence, Survival time