Very Early Recurrence as a Dynamic Prognostic Stratifier After Curative Hepatectomy for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Landmark Analysis with Internal Validation and Machine-Learning Benchmarking

Background

Very early recurrence (VER, defined as recurrence within 12 months) after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) resection is often linked to poor survival, but conventional survival analyses stratified by recurrence status are inherently susceptible to guarantee-time bias. The relation between VER and post-recurrence survival also remains uncertain.