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Microspheres in Chemoembolization of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Does doxorubicin make a difference?

Publish date:: February 9, 2016

There was no apparent difference between treatment with microspheres alone (BB) or with doxorubicin-eluting beads (LCB) for chemoembolization of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), according to a study of 101 patients with HCC who were randomly assigned to each treatment. Researchers found:

Demographics in the 2 groups were comparable.

Adverse events occurred with similar frequency: 38% in BB and 40% in LCB.

There was no difference in RECIST response: 5.9% in BB vs 6.0% in LCB.

Median progression-free survival was 6.2 months for BB vs 2.8 months for LCB.

Overall survival was 19.6 months for BB vs 20.8 months for LCB.

Citation: Brown KT, Do RK, Gonen M, et al. Randomized trial of hepatic artery embolization for hepatocellular carcinoma using doxorubicin-eluting microspheres compared with embolization with microspheres alone. [Published online ahead of print February 1, 2016]. J Clin Oncol. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.64.0821.

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