2019 Update of Indian National Association for Study of the Liver Consensus on Prevention, Diagnosis, and Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in India: The Puri II Recommendations

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the major causes of morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenditure in patients with chronic liver disease in India. The Indian National Association for Study of the Liver (INASL) had published its first guidelines on diagnosis and management of HCC (The Puri Recommendations) in 2014, and these guidelines were very well received by the healthcare community involved in diagnosis and management of HCC in India and neighboring countries. However, since 2014, many new developments have taken place in the field of HCC diagnosis and management, hence INASL endeavored to update its 2014 consensus guidelines. A new Task Force on HCC was constituted that reviewed the previous guidelines as well as the recent developments in various aspects of HCC that needed to be incorporated in the new guidelines. A 2-day round table discussion was held on 5th and 6th May 2018 at Puri, Odisha, to discuss, debate, and finalize the revised consensus statements. Each statement of the guideline was graded according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment Development and Evaluation system with minor modifications. We present here the 2019 Update of INASL Consensus on Prevention, Diagnosis, and Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in India: The Puri-2 Recommendations.

Treatment Response Evaluation and Follow-up in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the major causes of morbidity, mortality and healthcare expenditure in patients with chronic liver disease. The management of HCC is evolving because of recently introduced novel therapeutic approaches. Optimal outcome requires an early and accurate assessment of tumor response to therapy. Current imaging modalities, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging; provide reliable and reproducible anatomical data in order to demonstrate tumor burden changes. However, in the setting of novel targeted therapies and liver directed treatments, simple tumor anatomical changes can be less informative and usually appear later than biological changes. There has been a growing interest to monitor the therapeutic response, at an early phase of treatment, by measuring tumor viability and/or perfusion. Therefore the importance of tumor viability assessment is increasingly being recognized. The tumor viability measurement guidelines have recently been amended to include the measurement of only the longest diameter of the enhancing tumors to formally amend RECIST to modified RECIST (mRECIST). Viable tumor should be defined as uptake of contrast agent in the arterial phase. In this review, we discuss criteria of response evaluation in HCC and further follow-up of patients receiving curative and palliative treatment.

Role of Transcatheter Intra-arterial Therapies for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Transcatheter intra-arterial therapies play a vital role in treatment of HCC due to the unique tumor vasculature. Evolution of techniques and newer efficacious modalities of tumor destruction have made these techniques popular. Various types of intra-arterial therapeutic options are currently available. These constitute: bland embolization, trans-arterial chemotherapy, trans-arterial chemo embolization with or without drug-eluting beads and trans-arterial radio embolization, which are elaborated in this review.