Alicia Busto Miramontes, Lucinda Paz Valiñas

Introduction: Liver cancer is one of leading causes of death world-wide. Indeed, ranked by frequency, it is the fifth leading cause diagnosed in men and the ninth in women. Although treatment is initially by surgical resection, this can not be performed on all patients. In recent years, therefore, new techniques have been developed for those patients among whom resection is contraindicated, and these include radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and microwave ablation (MWA) among others.

Objectives. To assess the efficacy/effectiveness and safety of MWA versus RFA in the treatment of primary and secondary liver tumours. Methods. We conducted a review by conducting an exhaustive search of the scientific literature until November 2016, stipulating no time limit and covering the following computerised biomedical databases:

• specialised systematic-review databases, such as Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE), National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) and the Cochrane Plus Library; and,
• general databases such as Medline, Embase and ISI.

Results, discussion and conclusion: See pdf below