Background: Surgical resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major curative option in patients with adequate residual liver function. The risk of recurrence is extremely high. The Singapore liver cancer recurrence (SLICER) is a nomogram that evaluates the 3-year and 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) of patients operated for HCC. The objectives of our study were:

To apply the SLICER prognostic score to a series of patients operated for a HCC

To compare the results found with specific evolutionary data in our patients

Methods: This is a retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study. It involved 39 patients, treated over a period of 15 years, and operated for HCC complicating chronic viral hepatopathy B and/or C. Overall survival (OS) and RFS were determined by establishing survival curves using the Kaplan-Meier method. The significance level was set at 0.05.

Results: Our series included 23 men and 16 women. The duration of follow-up was 45 months for all patients. The average of OS rate was 42.8% at 3 years. The presence of vascular invasion, satellite nodules and cirrhosis were independent factors for both OS and RFS.  The SLICER score significantly underestimated the calculated survival rates. In fact, the 3-year and 5-year RFS rates according to the SLICER score were respectively 28.5% and 20.6%, whereas the respective effective rates were 45.6% (p = 0.03) and 38.4% (p = 0.04).

Conclusion: The SLICER score has not been validated in our series. To be applied in daily practice, it must be tested and validated on a larger sample of patients.
Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma, Prognosis, Score, Viral hepatitis, Liver