Figure 3
Effects of short-term and low-dose epirubicin chemotherapy in rats with orthotopic HCC. (a) Treatment scheme of short-term (7-day) and low-dose epirubicin for orthotopic HCC in the SD rats. (b) Mean tumor sizes before and after treatment in the control (n = 11) and epirubicin (n = 11) groups showed significant increase in sizes in the control group (* P < 0.01), but not in the epirubicin group (P = 0.1737). Besides, mean tumor size of the control group was significantly larger than that of the epirubicin group after the treatment (* P < 0.01) while the sizes of tumors were similar before treatment (P = 0.5305). (c) Significant difference was seen in the mean dissected (real) tumor sizes between the control and epirubicin groups after sacrifice (* P < 0.05). (d) No significant difference was noted in tumor weights between the control and epirubicin groups after sacrifice. (P = 0.0906).