Transarterial chemoembolization with drug-eluting beads in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: response analysis with mRECIST

According to the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) staging classification, transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is the treatment of choice for intermediate hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Thereby, the use of drug-eluting beads (DEB) as embolic agents has been recently established in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to evaluate tumor response after DEB-TACE. This retrospective study was approved by the institutional ethics committee. Overall, 89 patients with HCC (Child Pugh A or B) receiving DEB-TACE as palliative treatment option or as bridging before liver transplantation were included in the study. Tumor response was assessed by modified response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (mRECIST) and a tumor growth rate. Survival analysis was performed using Kaplan-Meier estimator with log-rank testing and Cox proportional hazards. A total of 188 TACE procedures were performed between 2006 and 2010. After the last intervention, 18% achieved complete response, 45% achieved partial response, 28% had stable disease and 9% had progressive disease. Using the tumor growth rate, 90% of all patients showed a tumor reduction between first and final response evaluation. The 6-month, 1-, 2- and 3-year overall survival rates were 86.5%, 67.4%, 47.2%, and 33.7%, with a median survival of 45, 24, 15, and 14 months for complete response, partial response, stable disease, and progressive disease, respectively. Tumor reduction showed a positive effect on survival. DEB-TACE offers conclusive response results with mRECIST and proves a strong tendency of tumor reduction on survival benefits. Therefore, tumor growth rate represents a possible parameter to predict survival.