Systemic Drugs for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: What Do Recent Clinical Trials Reveal About Sequencing and the Emerging Complexities of Clinical Decisions?

ABSTRACT: Liver cancer was the fourth leading cause of cancer death in 2015 with increasing incidence between 1990 and 2015. Orthotopic liver transplantation, surgical resection and ablation comprise the only curative therapy options. However, due to the late manifestation of clinical symptoms, many patients present with intermediate or advanced disease, resulting in no curative treatment option being available. Whereas intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is usually still addressable by transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), advanced-stage HCC is amenable only to pharmacological treatments. Conventional cytotoxic agents failed demonstrating relevant effect on survival also because their use was severely limited by the mostly underlying insufficient liver function. For a decade, tyrosi

SUBMITTER: Himmelsbach V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10886804 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature