Asia-Pacific Transplant Oncology Symposium 2024: Expert Statements on the Current State and Future Direction of Hepatobiliary Surgical and Transplant Oncology

Background: Hepatobiliary oncology is at an inflection point. Parallel advances in surgical technique, locoregional therapy, systemic treatment, and understanding of tumour biology have expanded the boundaries of curative-intent care yet have also exposed a critical reality that technical resectability is not synonymous with oncologic resectability. Technically successful resection or liver transplantation may be futile when tumour biology is aggressive, leading to early recurrence and limited survival benefit. Modern hepatobiliary surgical and transplant oncology must therefore move beyond anatomy-driven decision-making towards biologically informed strategies that incorporate tumour behaviour, treatment response, and temporal disease stability. Summary: The Asia-Pacific Transplant Oncology Symposium (APTOS) 2024 examined how Eastern and Western paradigms intersect across hepatocellular carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, and colorectal liver metastases, identifying pathways towards integration. Eastern and Western programmes have historically approached hepatobiliary oncology through distinct and longstanding philosophies. Eastern centres, frequently operating within living donor liver transplantation-dominant systems characterized by organ scarcity and the ethical principle of double equipoise, have traditionally leveraged high operative volume and technical expertise in complex resections. These environments have favoured surgery-first approaches when resection appears technically feasible, alongside response-driven conversion strategies aimed at expanding operability. Western centres, shaped by deceased-donor allocation frameworks and trial-oriented oncology models, have more consistently prioritized biological selection and longitudinal validation of disease control before proceeding to curative-intent intervention, particularly in borderline-resectable disease. These differences are driven by infrastructural and ethical factors, including donor availability, transplant systems, and biomarker integration, rather than surgical capability. This article is an expert statement reflecting the opinion of an international multidisciplinary faculty of hepatobiliary surgeons, transplant surgeons, hepatologists, and medical and clinical oncologists from Eastern and Western centres. It is a narrative expert perspective and not a formal consensus or guideline. Key Messages: This expert statement proposes that the next phase of hepatobiliary oncology requires harmonized, biology-driven definitions of resectability, transplantability, and futility. Comparative evaluation of regional strategies is essential to clarify how treatment sequencing affects recurrence and survival, an effort that is time-sensitive as advances in systemic therapy may soon obscure strategy-specific effects. Rather than competing models, Eastern procedural expertise and Western biology-centred frameworks should be viewed as complementary, supporting context-dependent or sequential approaches that integrate surgery with biology-guided systemic or locoregional therapy. Aligning these paradigms within ethical stewardship of donor organs can establish globally coherent, biology-driven standards that maximize durable survival while minimizing futile surgery and transplantation.