Improved prognosis of postoperative hepatocellular carcinoma patients when treated with functional foods: a prospective cohort study

Background/Aims: Active hexose correlated compound (AHCC) is a newly developed functional food. In vitro experiments have shown that AHCC enhances natural killer cell activity, and may be considered a potent biological response modifier in the treatment of cancer patients. However, the effects of AHCC in a clinical setting have not been reported. We seek to determine whether AHCC can improve the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients following surgical treatment. Methods: A prospective cohort study was performed from February 1, 1992 to December 31, 2001. A total of 269 consecutive patients with histologically confirmed HCC were studied. All of the patients underwent resection of a liver tumor. Time to treatment failure (disease recurrence or death) and ten parameters related to liver function after surgery were examined. Results: Of the 269 patients, 11.3 received AHCC orally after undergoing curative surgery (AHCC group). The AHCC group had a significantly longer no recurrence period (hazard ratio (HR), 0.639; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.429-0.952; P = 0.0277) and an increased overall survival rate (HR, 0.421; 95 % CI, 0.253-0.701; P = 0.0009) when compared to the control group by Cox's multivariate analysis. Conclusions: This study suggests that AHCC intake can improve the prognosis of postoperative HCC patients. (C) 2002 European Association for the Study of the Liver. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.