CT with hepatic arterioportography as a pretreatment examination for hepatocellular carcinoma patients: a randomized controlled trial.

"Guarantor of the article: Ryosuke Tateishi, MD, PhD.: Specific author contributions: Conception and design: R.T., M.A., N.Y., T.G., S.S., H.Y., Y.M., and M.O.; analysis: R.T. and Y.M.; treatment and data collection: T.O., R.T., M.A., S.M., M.S., K.U., T.A., K.E., Y.K., T.G., and S.S.; drafting article: T.O.; critical revision: R.T., M.A., H.Y., K.O., and K.K.: Financial support: This work was supported by Health Sciences Research grants of The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (Research on Hepatitis). No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.: Potential competing interests: None."

"Financial support : This work was supported by Health Sciences Research grants of The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (Research on Hepatitis). No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

"The study population consisted of patients with early-stage HCC with an indication for RFA. Those who met the following criteria were enrolled between September 2004 and February 2009: (i) diagnosis of typical HCC on dynamic CT performed within 2 weeks, i.e., hyperattenuation during the arterial phase and hypoattenuation during the equilibrium phase ((,)); (ii) tumor size ≤3.0 cm and no more than three tumor nodules; (iii) Child–Pugh class A liver function; and (iv) age >20 years. Exclusion criteria were: allergy to contrast media; portal or hepatic vein tumor thrombosis; extrahepatic metastasis; diffuse and infiltrative tumors; renal failure (serum creatinine >2.0 mg/dl, or serum urea nitrogen >30 mg/dl); impaired coagulation (e.g., platelet count <50 × 103/μl, or prothrombin activity <50%); pregnancy; or past history of choledochojejunostomy. We included those with previous treatments as well as treatment-naive cases provided that there was no local recurrence at enrollment. These inclusion criteria and the study design did not change till the study completely ended. The study design conformed to the Declaration of Helsinki Principles and was approved by the ethics committee of our institution. The study was registered at the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) Clinical Trial Registry (UMIN-CTR000000070). Written informed consent was obtained from each patient. This study complied with the CONSORT guidelines for reporting of clinical trials ()."