Impact of abdominal aortic calcification on clinical outcomes following initial hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma: A retrospective cohort study

Yuki Imaoka; Masahiro Ohira; Koki Sato; Kouki Imaoka; Shintaro Kuroda; Hiroyuki Tahara; Tsuyoshi Kobayashi; Kentaro Ide; Yuka Tanaka; Hideki Ohdan

doi:10.1002/ags3.12508

Impact of abdominal aortic calcification on clinical outcomes following initial hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma: A retrospective cohort study

Ann Gastroenterol Surg. 2021 Sep 19;6(1):149-158. doi: 10.1002/ags3.12508. eCollection 2022 Jan.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gastroenterological and Transplant Surgery Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences Hiroshima University Hiroshima Japan.
² Division of Regeneration and Medicine Medical Center for Translational and Clinical Research Hiroshima University Hospital Hiroshima Japan.

Abstract

Aim: The clinical impact of abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) in patients who undergo hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unknown.

Methods: To evaluate the impact of AAC on clinical outcomes, we analyzed 203 patients who underwent hepatectomy for HCC between 2010 and 2013.

Results: Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed significantly worse overall survival (OS) in the high AAC group than in the low AAC group. The recurrence-free survival (RFS) was also significantly worse in the high AAC group. In the multivariate analysis, high AAC (hazard ratio [HR], 2.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24-5.09; P = .01) was an independent risk factor for poor OS after hepatectomy for HCC. High AAC was also an independent risk factor for poor RFS (HR, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.04-2.76; P = .04).

Conclusions: Abdominal aortic calcification had a strong relationship with poor OS and RFS after hepatectomy for HCC. We suggest that AAC had a relationship with smoking and diabetes; therefore, AAC could reflect a surrogate for older age, worse health status, and inflammatory score.

Keywords: HCC; calcification; prognosis.