Background & objective: Transcatheter arterial chemoembolism (TACE) is one of important therapeutic method for hapatocarcinoma. Post-operative TACE could reduce recurrent rate definitely. However, there were much debate about the function and effect of preoperative TACE. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of preoperative TACE on immunity of the patients with recurrent hepatocarcinoma who performed combined treatment.
Methods: The patients with primary hepatocarcinoma who performed operative TACE were collected. The dynamic changes of cellular immunity and humoral immunity in pre-intervention, pre-operation, combined treatment after recurrence periods were determined by flow cytometry and ELISA, and were compared with the data of the recurrent patients after simple operation.
Results: In TACE group: CD3, CD4, CD56 decreased slightly; serum IgM increased slightly, with no significant difference compared to pre-intervention (P < 0.05); At the time of combined treatment after recurrence, CD8 increased and CD4/CD8 decreased (0.8 +/- 0.3%), the immune suppression was slight. In sample operation group, CD3, CD4, CD56 were 49.0 +/- 9.1%, 19.0 +/- 4.8%, 18.6 +/- 9.9%; the immune suppression was severe. The operation significantly decreased the patients' CD3, CD4, and CD19. The pathologic results showed that the tumor capsule, intrahepatic daughter foci, tumor thrombus, and the radical degree in preoperative group were much better than those in simple operation group.
Conclusion: The preoperative TACE do not obviously influence the immunity; furthermore, it can relieve the immune depression after operation and is a remedy of the surgical treatment. It is important to grasp the indication of preoperative TACE.