Thirty years of experience with pediatric primary malignant liver tumors

Since 1950, 48 infants and children from 10 weeks to 16 years of age presented with primary hepatic malignancy. Signs and symptoms ranged from asymptomatic to those of malignant disease. All patients had a palpable abdominal mass. Jaundice was seen in five patients, four of whom had preexisting cirrhosis. Three male children had evidence of precocious puberty. Whereas liver function tests were usually normal, α-fetoprotein levels, when elevated, proved useful diagnostically and as a tumor marker in follow-up. Hepatic angiography and computed tomography (CT) scans have provided the most valuable preoperative assessment of hepatic architecture. Sixteen infants and children underwent resection for cure. Eleven of these patients are alive and disease free 6 months to 23 years later. Six additional patients had incomplete resection with subsequent radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy; only one such patient is disease-free past 3 years. Twenty-six tumors could only be biopsied; most of these patients died within 12 months regardless of what treatment they received. The histology was hepatoblastoma in 39 patients, hepatocellular carcinoma in 4, fibrolamellar carcinoma in 4, and malignant mesenchymal tumor (mesenchymoma) in 1. The patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and mesenchymoma all died. Three of four patients with fibrolamellar carcinoma are alive and disease-free following resection up to 3 years; this histology seems favorable. The other survivors had hepatoblastoma. The role of adjunctive chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy has not yet been determined.