TACE Plus Sorafenib for Patients With Liver Cancer and Portal Vein Tumor Thrombus

By: Vanessa A. Carter, BS
Posted: Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Ming Kuang, MD, PhD, of the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, and colleagues compared the safety and efficacy of sorafenib plus transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) with sorafenib alone as a postoperative adjuvant therapy option for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have portal vein tumor thrombus. Presented during the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) GI Cancers Symposium (Abstract 493), the results of this study suggest this well-tolerated treatment combination may improve outcomes.

This phase III, multicenter trial enrolled 158 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who developed portal vein tumor thrombus after surgery. Participants were randomly assigned on a 1:1 basis to receive sorafenib plus TACE or sorafenib alone as a postoperative therapy. Treatment with sorafenib was administered 3 days after randomization, and TACE was performed 1 day after sorafenib initiation.

The median follow-up duration was 28.4 months. The median recurrence-free survival with sorafenib plus TACE was 16.8 months, significantly longer than with sorafenib alone (12.6 months; P = .002). Moreover, the median overall survival was also significantly longer with the combination therapy, with an improvement from 22.5 to 30.4 months when compared with monotherapy (P = .017).

Upon the completion of multivariable analysis, it was found that treatment with sorafenib plus TACE was an independent risk factor for both recurrence-free and overall survival. Of note, patients in this cohort did not demonstrate any additional toxicity when compared with the sorafenib-alone group.

Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.

2023 ASCO GI Symposium

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