Real-time ultrasonography-augmented navigation in laparoscopicassisted ablation may be useful for treating challenging tumors in patients with liver cancer, according to recent findings. Yoshiko Iwai, MS, MFA, and coauthors analyzed data from 467 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma—187 treated with navigation and 280 without navigation. Patients who underwent navigationassisted ablation were more likely to have stage 2 disease (62 of 183 patients [33.9%] vs 17.1%] with TMN staging data; P<0.002). On average, patients treated with navigation also had more lesions (1.3 [SD: 0.5] vs 1.2 [SD: 0.5] lesions; P=0.002) and a longer operation time (113.2 [SD: 29.4] vs 109.6 [SD: 32.3] minutes; P=0.04). Additionally, these patients were more likely to have tumors in segment 8 (n=59 vs n=53; P=0.005) and less likely to have tumors in segment 4; P=0.005). Both groups had similar overall mean time to recurrence rates after treatment (10.0 [SD: 12.5] months).
