BACKGROUND: Primary liver cancer is a highly aggressive neoplasm with high incidence and mortality. Due to the high ability to metastasis, the 5-year survival rate of patients with primary liver cancer is poor. AIM: To investigate the clinical value of systemic immunoinflammatory index (SII) in predicting recurrence and metastasis after interventional therapy in patients with primary liver cancer. METHODS: Total 186 patients with primary liver cancer were included and underwent Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), and followed up for 3 years. Then, patients were divided into 110 cases in the recurrent metastasis group and 76 cases in the non-recurrent metastasis group according to presence or absence of recurrence and metastasis. Baseline data, SII and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels were compared. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to analyze factors affecting recurrence and metastasis. ROC curve was used to analyze SII and AFP levels in predicting recurrence and metastasis after interventional therapy in patients. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to evaluate the survival of patients. RESULTS: The SII index and AFP levels in the recurrence and metastasis group were higher than those in the non-recurrence and metastasis group (P <
0.001). Cox proportional hazards regression analysis confirmed tumor size ≥ 5 cm, presence of vascular tumor thrombus, presence of vascular invasion, no tumor capsule, SII index, AFP Levels were closely related to the recurrence and metastasis of patients with primary liver cancer (P <
0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that AUC of SII and AFP predicted recurrence and metastasis after intervention were 0.797 and 0.839, respectively, and the jointed AUC was 0.910. After a 3-years of follow-up, the overall survival rate of the 186 patients was 45.70% (85/186). Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed that patients with high SII levels had shorter survival time than that of patients with low SII levels (P <
0.05). CONCLUSION: Preoperative SII was closely associated with early recurrence and metastasis, and combined with AFP may have higher value in predicting recurrence and metastasis after interventional therapy in patients with primary liver cancer.