Radiofrequency Thermal Ablation Vs.Percutaneous Ethanol Injection Hepatocellular Carcinoma In Cirrhosis:a Meta-analysis Of Randomized Controlled Trials

Objective:To review the available evidence comparing radiofrequency ablation(RFA) to percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) for hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC).Methods:A computerized search of articles published between1966and January2012was performed using The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, ENBASE databases and chinese biomedicine database(CBM), Chongqing VIP database, Tsinghua Tongfang database, ChianInfo to select the clinical controlled trials comparing RFA vs.PEI in treating hepatocellular carcinoma in cirrhosis. Outcomes were overall survival or the main complications, recurrence rate were critically assessed and data analyses were performed with Revman5.0. The risk of death in the survival curves was calculated with Hazard Ratio worksheet.Results:6RCTs were included, including840patients (391in RFA group,449in PEI group). System analysis results show that RFA than PEI can improve the survival rate and reduce the relapse rate. No significant difference between the two groups the incidence of complications such as abdominal bleeding, pleural effusion.Conclusion:RFA is superior to PEI in the treatment of early inoperable HCC patients in cirrhosis with respect to overall survival and decreasing the recurrence rate. Due to the numbers of patients included in the literature is not big enough, there is still needed for more rational design of high-quality studies to further verify the conclusion.