RESEARCH A comparison of liver prot in r

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleIntroduction Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third cause of cancer related death following lung and stomach cancer [1]. Resection and liver transplantation are generally regarded as curative treatments for HCC in the early stage and have shown effective results [2]. However, surgical resection accompanies high recurrence rate, and transplantation cannot be universally applicable. Now Radiotherapy technology has evolved remarkably and plays an important role in the treatment of HCC. During the past decade, improvement of survival had been observed from a high increase of radiation dose [3,4]. However, a high radiation dose to the liver would give rise to acute and late hepatic toxicity. Radiation-induced liver disease (RILD) is the most severe radiation-induced complication which may result in hepatic failure and death. The occurrence of RILD is associated with Child-Pugh grade, hepatic cirrhosis and the volume of liver receiving radiotherapy (RT). Cheng et al. [5] showed that both Child-Pugh Class B and the presence of hepatiti