Objective: To investigate the effect of highly agglutinative staphylococin (HAS) on prognosis in patients with liver cancer.
Methods: From December 1999 to February 2003, 39 patients with liver cancer underwent combination therapy with microwave ablation and percutanous HAS injection (PHIT) and 39 patients with liver cancer underwent microwave ablation (MWA) alone were included in the research. On the 21st day after microwave ablation, HAS was injected intramuscularly on three successive days for allergy detection using the dose of 500U, 1000U and 2000U respectively. Ultrasound-guided injection of HAS (2000U) in local area of ablated tumor was performed in the 3rd, 7th day and the 1st, 3rd, 6th month after last intramuscular injection of HAS, respectively. Biopsies of tumor before PMTC were performed in every patient.
Results: There was no significant difference in the 1, 2, 3, 4 years survival rate between two groups (93.63%, 83.04%, 74.14% and 61.78% respectively in the PHIT group vs. 88.89%, 80.81%, 65.69% and 46.99% respectively in the MWA group). The 1 and 2 years over-all recurrence rate were significantly lower in the PHIT group (10.00% and 31.04%) compared with those of the MWA group (22.74% and 48.76%). However there was no significant difference in the 3 and 4 years recurrence rate between two groups.
Conclusions: Local injection of HAS in situ of ablated tumor could decrease recurrence rate. Further study will put emphasis on improving long-term efficacy of treatment.