Transcatheter hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy vs sorafenib in the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma of Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage C: a meta-analysis of Asian population

Jia-Yan Ni,1,* Shan-Shan Liu,2,* Hong-Liang Sun,1 Wei-Dong Wang,1 Ze-Long Zhong,1 Si-Nan Hou,1 Yao-Ting Chen,1 Lin-Feng Xu1 1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Malignant Tumor Epigenetics and Gene Regulation, Department of Interventional Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Public Health, Sushe Community Health Service Center, Guangzhou 510220, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally tothiswork Objective: To compare the clinical efficacy and safety of transcatheter hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) with those of sorafenib in the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) of Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage C. Methods: Potentially relevant studies comparing the clinical efficacy and safety of HAIC with those of sorafenib were searched using Medline, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Chinese databases (Wanfang Data and China National Knowledge Infrastructure). Overall survival rate (OSR), tumor response rate, disease control rate (DCR), and serious adverse events (SAEs) were compared and analyzed. Pooled ORs with 95% CIs were calculated using either the fixed-effects model or the random-effects model. All statistical analyses were conducted using Review Manager (version 5.3) from the Cochrane Collaboration. Results: A total of 1,264 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The results of this study showed that HAIC was associated with significantly higher 1-, 2-, and 3-year OSRs than sorafenib (OR 1.88, 95% CI1-year: [1.27–2.78], P1-year=0.002; OR 2.15, 95% CI2-year: [1.06–4.37], P2-year=0.03; OR 7.90, 95% CI3-year: [2.12–29.42], P3-year=0.002). Compared to sorafenib, HAIC was associated with superior complete response (CR), partial response (PR), and objective response rate (ORR) (OR 3.90, 95% CICR: [1.89–8.03], PCR =0.0002; OR 3.47, 95% CIPR: [2.31–5.24], PPR