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Objectives: Large hepatocellular carcinoma (LHCC) is prone to short‐term recurrence and poor long‐term survival after hepatectomy, and there is still a lack of effective neoadjuvant treatments to improve recurrence‐free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). We retrospectively analyzed the efficacy of preoperative transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) in solitary LHCC (≥5 cm). Materials and Methods: A multicenter medical database was used to analyze preoperative TACE's effects on RFS, OS, and perioperative complications in patients with solitary LHCC who received surgical treatment from January 2005 to December 2015. The patients were divided into Group A (5.0–9.9 cm) and Group B (≥10 cm), with 10 cm as the critical value, and the effect of preoperative TACE on RFS, OS and perioperative complications was assessed in each subgroup. Results: In the overall population, patients with preoperative TACE had better RFS and OS than those without preoperative TACE. However, after stratifying the patients into the two HCC groups, preoperative TACE only improved the survival outcomes of patients with Group B (≥10 cm). Multivariate Cox‐regression analysis showed that lack of preoperative TACE was an independent risk factor for RFS and OS in the overall population and in Group B but not in Group A. Conclusions: Preoperative TACE is beneficial for patients with solitary HCC (≥10 cm). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: The existing evidence has indicated that hyperthermia ablation (HA) and HA combined with transarterial chemoembolization (HATACE) are the optimal alternative to surgical resection for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the COVID‐19 crisis. However, the evidence for decision‐making is lacking in terms of comparison between HA and HATACE. Herein, a comprehensive evaluation was performed to compare the efficacy and safety of HATACE with monotherapy. Materials and Methods: Worldwide studies were collected to evaluate the HATACE regimen for HCC due to the practical need for global extrapolation of applicative population. Meta‐analyses were performed using the RevMan 5.3 software (The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration, Copenhagen, Denmark). Results: Thirty‐six studies involving a large sample of 5036 patients were included finally. Compared with HA alone, HATACE produced the advantage of 5‐year overall survival (OS) rate (OR:1.90; 95%CI:1.46,2.46; p < 0.05) without increasing toxicity (p ≥ 0.05). Compared with TACE alone, HATACE was associated with superior 5‐year OS rate (OR:3.54; 95%CI:1.96,6.37; p < 0.05) and significantly reduced the incidences of severe liver damage (OR:0.32; 95%CI:0.11,0.96; p < 0.05) and ascites (OR:0.42; 95%CI:0.20,0.88; p < 0.05). Subgroup analysis results of small (≤3 cm) HCC revealed that there were no significant differences between the HATACE group and HA monotherapy group in regard to the OS rates (p ≥ 0.05). Conclusions: Compared with TACE alone, HATACE was more effective and safe for HCC. Compared with HA alone, HATACE was more effective for non‐small‐sized (>3 cm) HCC with comparable safety. However, the survival benefit of adjuvant TACE in HATACE regimen was not found for the patients with small (≤3 cm) HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Anlotinib showed significant survival benefits in advanced non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients as a third‐ or further‐line treatment in the ALTER0303 trial. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of anlotinib in patients with different histologies. Methods: The ALTER0303 trial was a randomized, open‐label, phase 3 study of anlotinib in NSCLC patients previously treated with at least two lines of chemotherapy or a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) in 31 centers in China. Patients were randomly assigned at a 2:1 ratio to receive anlotinib (12 mg QD from days 1 to 14 of a 21‐day cycle) or placebo until progression or intolerable toxicity. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS). We assessed the efficacy of anlotinib in histological subgroups in the full analysis set. Results: In the ALTER0303 trial, 336 patients had the histological subtype of adenocarcinoma (ACC), 86 patients had the histological subtype of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and 15 patients had another subtype. In the ACC subgroup, the median OS time was significantly improved with anlotinib compared with placebo (9.6 months vs 6.9 months, P =.0051), as was the median progression‐free survival (PFS) time (5.5 months vs 1.4 months, P <.0001). In the SCC subgroup, the median OS time was 10.7 months in the anlotinib group and 6.5 months in the placebo group (P =.2570), and the median PFS time was 4.8 months and 2.7 months (P =.0004), respectively. The common adverse events observed in the SCC and ACC subgroups were similar. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that anlotinib significantly improves PFS and OS in ACC patients and has a tendency to prolong survival in SCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]