Table 4.

Relation between micrometastases and clinicopathological characteristics in 196 cases of primary liver cancer

	Retrospective group					Prospective group
Parameters	Cases	Both mt and ms	One of mt and ms	None of mt or ms	P value	Cases	Both mt and ms	One of mt and ms	None of mt or ms	P value
Encapsulation	120				< 0.01	76				< 0.01
No	24	1	2	21		12	1	5	6
Incomplete	54	3	17	34		55	16	17	22
Complete	42	0	3	39		9	0	0	9
AFP (μmol/L)	120				0.08	76				< 0.01
< 20	44	0	7	37		21	0	4	17
20-400	33	0	6	27		22	2	8	12
> 400	43	4	9	30		33	15	10	8
Size of tumor (mm)	111				0.1	76				< 0.01
≤ 20	10	0	1	9		7	0	1	6
20-30	23	1	3	19		14	2	4	8
30-50	30	1	6	23		29	4	8	17
50-100	27	0	3	24		15	6	6	3
> 100	21	2	5	14		11	5	3	3
Mt or Ms						76				< 0.01
Mt and Ms						3	3	0	0
Mt						9	6	3	0
Ms						6	0	2	4
None of both						58	8	18	32

Mt; microscopic tumor thrombus; ms: microsatellite. Incomplete encapsulation: part encapsulation or encapsulation breakthrough or with lesion inside encapsulation.