Morphometric Analysis of Cirrhotic Nodules in Hepatocellular Carcinoma-bearing Livers

Kang, Gyeong Hoon; Kim, Yong Il

Abstract

It has been well known that liver cirrhosis, regardless of its etiology, is an important predisposing factor in hepatocarcinogenesis. However, the type of cirrhosis in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)-bearing liver varies not only by geographic areas but also with the cirteria applied for morphological classification of cirrhosis. To elucidate the relationship between the nodule size of HCC-bearing cirrhotic liver and clinicopathologic features, we measured cirrhotic nodule areas of 49 surgically resected HCC cases using image analyzer. The morphological type of cirrhosis was predominantly macronodular(49%), and followed by mixed(37%) and micronodular(14%). Seventy percent of the cases showed seropositivity for HBsAg. The average area of cirrhotic nodules was significantly larger in HBsAg-positive cases(mean: 6.14 mm2) than that of HBsAg-negative cases(mean: 2.5 mm2)(p<0.05), and their size was bigger in cases with grossly expansile pattern of HCC than those cases with infiltrative ones(p<0.05). Based on the above findings, we assume that seropositivity of HBsAg may influence on the regenerative activity of cirrhotic nodules and also subsequent increase of risk for further development of HCC. The presence of cirrhohsis and nodule size seem to be the important contributing factors to determine the growing patterns of HCC.