Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma: pushing the boundaries

Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has come a long way since the early days of high recurrence rates and the questions over whether liver transplantation should really be used for treating malignancy (1,2). Transplantation is now firmly established as a curative option for a select group of patients with HCC. Unfortunately, we still deny many patients with this cancer the option of transplantation because of adherence to old patient selection criteria that excludes many on grounds of inadequate survival benefit when comparing to non-HCC indications for liver transplantation.