Abstract: Objective To investigate the difference of recurrence-free survival and overall survival in patients with hepatitis B-related hepatocellular carcinoma receiving and not receiving antiviral therapy. Methods 156 patients with serum HBV DNA positive liver cancer underwent radical resection were randomly selected in our hospital from January 2004 to December 2006. All of them had complete clinical and follow-up data. They were divided into two groups,80 had operation and 76 had postoperative nucleoside analogue antiviral treatment. The antiviral strategies including oral lamivudine and adefovir or entecavir. Kaplan Meier method was applied to compare postoperative recurrence-free survival and overall survival between the two groups. Results The serum HBV DNA loads were（1.63±1.15）×10⁴ copies/ml and less than 1×10²copies/ml in 76 patients receiving antiviral therapy one month and three months after operation,much lower than at presentation（P<0.05）,while serum HBV DNA loads did not change in 80 patients without antiviral therapy;the recurrence-free survival in 80 patients without antiviral therapy was （10.25±2.56） m,while it was [（21.43±3.35） m,P<0.01] in 76 patients with antiviral therapy;the 1 a,3 a and 5 a recurrence-free survival rates in 80 patients without antiviral treatment were 54.6%,22.3% and 0.0%,while they were 73.1%,36.2% and 23.4% in 76 patients with antiviral therapy（P<0.05）;the overall survival in 80 patients without antiviral therapy was（18.42±3.21）m,while it was [（30.28±2.62）m,P<0.01] in 76 patients with antiviral therapy;the overall survival rates at 1 a,3 a and 5 a in 80 patients without antiviral therapy were 81.2%,42.0% and 16.3%,while they were 92.2%,73.4% and 31.6% in 76 patients with antiviral therapy（P<0.05）. Conclusion Standard antiviral treatment can improve prognosis and prolong the total survival in patients with serum HBV DNA positive liver cancer.

Key words: Liver cancer, Hepatitis B, Nucleoside analogues, Hepatectomy, Survival