Therapies for advanced stage hepatocellular carcinoma with macrovascular invasion or metastatic disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis : Finn et al.

Loco-regional treatments play a key role in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Image-guided tumor ablation is recommended in patients with early-stage HCC when surgical options are precluded. Radiofrequency ablation has shown superior anticancer effects and greater survival benefit with respect to the seminal percutaneous technique, ethanol injection, in meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, and is currently established as the standard method for local tumor treatment. Novel thermal and nonthermal techniques for tumor ablation--including microwave ablation, irreversible electroporation, and light-activated drug therapy--seem to have potential to overcome the limitations of radiofrequency ablation and warrant further clinical investigation. Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is the standard of care for patients with asymptomatic, noninvasive multinodular tumors at the intermediate stage. The recent introduction of embolic microspheres that have the ability to release the drug in a controlled and sustained fashion has been shown to significantly increase safety and efficacy of TACE with respect to conventional, lipiodol-based regimens. The available data for radioembolization with yttrium-90 suggests that this is a potential new option for patients with HCC, which should be investigated in the setting of randomized controlled trials. Despite the advances and refinements in loco-regional approaches, the long-term survival outcomes of patients managed with interventional techniques are not fully satisfactory, mainly because of the high rates of tumor recurrence. The recent addition of molecular targeted drugs with antiangiogenic and antiproliferative properties to the therapeutic armamentarium for HCC has prompted the design of clinical trials aimed at investigating the synergies between loco-regional and systemic treatments. The outcomes of these trials are eagerly awaited, because they have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of HCC.

Clinical decisions should be based on the totality of the best evidence and not the results of individual studies. When clinicians apply the results of a systematic review or meta-analysis to patient care, they should start by evaluating the credibility of the methods of the systematic review, ie, the extent to which these methods have likely protected against misleading results. Credibility depends on whether the review addressed a sensible clinical question; included an exhaustive literature search; demonstrated reproducibility of the selection and assessment of studies; and presented results in a useful manner. For reviews that are sufficiently credible, clinicians must decide on the degree of confidence in the estimates that the evidence warrants (quality of evidence). Confidence depends on the risk of bias in the body of evidence; the precision and consistency of the results; whether the results directly apply to the patient of interest; and the likelihood of reporting bias. Shared decision making requires understanding of the estimates of magnitude of beneficial and harmful effects, and confidence in those estimates.

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) and sorafenib in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT).