Abstract: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the main type of primary liver cancer with high incidence and poor prognosis. The long-term benefit of patients can be maximized by orderly multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment. Surgery is one of the main treatment methods for HCC, but it faces high risk of postoperative recurrence. With the development of radiotherapy technology, radiotherapy has been widely used in the treatment of HCC. The combined application of surgery and radiotherapy can effectively reduce disease recurrence and prolong patient survival. Evidence from perioperative radiotherapy for HCC shows that: for narrow-margin surgery and microvascular invasion, postoperative or intraoperative radiotherapy can make up for the insufficiency of surgery and achieve similar efficacy as wide-margin surgery; for resectable HCC with portal vein tumor thrombus, neoadjuvant radiotherapy combined with surgical resection or postoperative radiotherapy can significantly improve the prognosis; while waiting for liver transplantation, stereotactic body radiotherapy as bridging therapy can safely and effectively delay tumor progression and prevent drop-out from the waitlist. Prospective research on multidisciplinary treatment modality including radiotherapy will continue to improve the survival rate for patients with HCC.

Key words: Hepatocellular carcinoma, Radiotherapy, Perioperative