Reply: Assessment of Hepatocarcinoma Response to Radiofrequency

Excerpt

We are grateful for the comments by Pompili et al. [1] concerning our work on hepatocellular carcinoma radiofrequency [2]. We found a low complete pathologic response rate of 46.7% and no significant difference between tumors with a diameter smaller or greater than 3 cm. Pompili et al. are disappointed by this fact since in their own experience [2] and that of others [3], nodes smaller than 3 cm have a higher pathologic response rate. It is logical to expect such correlation since the area of high temperature produced by the radiofrequency device can better pass over the boundaries of smaller tumors than those of larger nodes. However, that has not been our experience nor was it that of other investigators. Martin et al. [4] focused on this issue and they did not find any significant correlation between pathologic response and tumor size. Lu et al. [5] did not find clear differences when they stratified the nodes according to size and found only a marginal nonsignificant difference in tumors greater than 4 cm, with worse response. In other works there is no mention of any possible correlation between size and response [6, 7]. …