Fig. 1.

Patient flow diagram. The definition of “no serious extrahepatic diseases” is that patients had no lung metastasis or bone metastasis of HCC, no congestive heart failure, no multiple hepatic cysts, no uncontrolled systemic infection or sepsis, no unrelieved biliary obstruction, no severe pulmonary hypertension, no moderate pulmonary hypertension, and no severe coagulopathy. HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; PVTT, portal vein tumour thrombus; TIPS, transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt; PSM, propensity score matching; BCLC, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer; MELD, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease