A comparative study of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma with reference to clinical features and prognosis

Objective To comparatively study intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with reference to clinical features and prognosis in Chinese Han population. Methods 699 cases of HCC and 170 cases of ICC confirmed by surgical pathological files from 2009 to 2010 were included and followed-up. The differences in demographic characteristics, hepatitis B virus infection, clinical characteristics, biochemical indexes, tumor markers and prognosis of HCC and ICC were analyzed retrospectively by means of paired t-test, analysis of variance, chi-square test and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Results Among 869 cases of primary liver cancer, HCC and ICC accounted for 80.43% and 19.57%. The old aged (P 0.05). Among the biochemical indicators, there were significant differences between HCC and ICC in the abnormal rate of ALT(P 0.05) in HCC and ICC groups. The content and abnormal rate of alpha-fetoprotein were higher in HCC (P < 0.01), while the content and abnormal rate of carcinoembryonic antigen and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 were higher in ICC (P < 0.01). The 10-year survival rate and median survival time (46.92% and 80.3 months) of HCC were higher than those of ICC (12.57% and 12.4 months) (P < 0.01). Conclusion In the study population, compared with ICC cases, the old aged male HCC cases are more common and has higher infection rate of hepatitis B virus and cirrhosis, but liver schistosomiasis is less common. The inflammatory damage, secretion and metabolic function of HCC were different from that of ICC cases, while the synthetic reserve function was similar to that of ICC and the prognosis of HCC cases was significantly better. The incidence of cirrhosis and schistosomiasis in ICC cases with positive hepatitis B virus infection was not significantly different from that of HCC cases. Key words: Carcinoma, hepatocellular; Bile duct neoplasms; Hepatitis B; Liver cirrhosis; Prognosis