Table 1 shows the patient and tumor characteristics of the initial HCC. The age, gender ratio, incidence of comorbidity, and positive rates of viral hepatitis, and laboratory data were comparable in both groups. In the repeated SR group, 35 (81.4%) patients had Child-Pugh class A cirrhosis and 1 (2.3%) had Child-Pugh class B cirrhosis, whereas 50 (87.7%) patients in the RFA group had Child-Pugh class A cirrhosis (p = 0.41). In each group, 7 patients did not have cirrhosis, which was based on radiological finding and Ishak score of non-tumor part in the surgical pathology. The two groups had similar clinico-pathological features of initial HCC in terms of tumor size, tumor number, distribution of tumor location, proportion of tumor BCLC staging, histological grade of tumor cell differentiation, and presence of microvascular invasion. Most patients had laparotomy segmentectomy or wedge resection for treatment of the initial HCC, and only four (7%) patients in the RFA group received a lobectomy.