Comparison of liver function and safety in hepatocellular cancer patients treated with DEB-TACE and cTACE: a multi-center, retrospective cohort study

Hua Xiang; Bin Xiong; Haiping Li; Chang Zhao; Zishu Zhang; Cong Ma; Chuansheng Zheng; Chao Luo; Huaiming Qiu; Yuanhui Yao; Hongyao Hu; Hui Zhao; Qingyun Long; Jun Zhou; Changyong Chen; Yilong Ma

doi:10.21037/tcr.2019.09.15

Comparison of liver function and safety in hepatocellular cancer patients treated with DEB-TACE and cTACE: a multi-center, retrospective cohort study

Transl Cancer Res. 2019 Sep;8(5):1950-1964. doi: 10.21037/tcr.2019.09.15.

Authors

Hua Xiang^#¹, Bin Xiong^#², Haiping Li³, Chang Zhao⁴, Zishu Zhang⁵, Cong Ma⁵, Chuansheng Zheng², Chao Luo⁶, Huaiming Qiu⁶, Yuanhui Yao¹, Hongyao Hu⁷, Hui Zhao⁷, Qingyun Long⁸, Jun Zhou⁸, Changyong Chen³, Yilong Ma⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Intervention, Hunan Provincial People's Hospital, Changsha 410005, China.
² Department of Interventional Radiology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, China.
⁴ Department of Interventional Therapy, Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha 410011, China.
⁶ Department of Radiology, Wuhan General Hospital of Guangzhou Military, Wuhan, China.
⁷ Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Hubei General Hospital, Wuhan 430070, China.
⁸ Department of Radiology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to compare the live function change and adverse events (AEs) between drug-eluting beads (DEB) transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) with CalliSpheres^® microspheres (CSM) and conventional TACE (cTACE) in treating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients.

Methods: Three hundred and thirty-five HCC patients underwent DEB-TACE with CSM (n=171, DEB-TACE group) or cTACE (n=164, cTACE group) were consecutively enrolled in this multi-center, retrospective cohort study. Liver function indexes were reviewed before treatment (W0), at 1 week (W1) and 1 month (M1) post treatment. Moreover, AEs during operation and hospitalization were retrieved as well.

Results: The changes of albumin (ALB) [-3.55 (-6.25 to -0.43) vs. -2.20 (-4.63-0.00), P=0.043] and total protein (TP) [-4.62 (-10.18-0.43) vs. -2.50 (-7.08-1.08), P=0.013] from W1 to W0 were lower in DEB-TACE group compared to cTACE group, while no difference was observed referring to the change of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (P=0.494), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (P=0.747), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (P=0.895), total bilirubin (TBIL) (P=0.059), total bile acid (TBA) (P=0.491) from W1 to W0. And the changes of these seven indexes from M1 to W0 were all similar between DEB-TACE group and cTACE group (all P>0.05). Besides, the occurrence of pain during treatment (19.3% vs. 11.0%, P=0.034) and the occurrence of fever during hospitalization (18.1% vs. 9.1%, P=0.017) were both increased in DEB-TACE group compared to cTACE group.

Conclusions: DEB-TACE with CSM is non-inferior to cTACE in terms of liver function change, while DEB-TACE with CSM leads to higher incidences of pain and fever.

Keywords: CalliSpheres® microspheres (CSM); conventional transarterial chemoembolization (cTACE); drug-eluting bead transarterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE); hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); liver function; safety.