Effects of PD-1 Inhibitors on Real-world Treatment Patterns, Outcomes in Advanced HCC

In patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), PD-1 inhibitors have shown potential clinical efficacy. There is currently a lack of research on the treatment patterns and outcomes connected with PD-1 inhibitors and advanced HCC.

Yunfeng Lai, MD, and colleagues crafted a study to investigate the real-world outcomes and treatment patterns related to PD-1 inhibitors as a first-line therapy for patients with advanced HCC.

Their findings were published in International Immunopharmacology.

Researchers used descriptive statistics to analyze first-line treatment patterns and the connections between patient characteristics and the most used treatment patterns in 480 adult patients with advanced HCC who underwent treatment with PD-1 inhibitors between April 2020 and November 2022 in China. They also reviewed the effectiveness of first-line treatment with PD-1 inhibitors in relation to survival and tumor response.

Of the 4 most used first-line treatment patterns—camrelizumab, tislelizumab, camrelizumab plus transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), and tislelizumab plus TACE—investigators reported statistical differences in patient characteristics of gender, hepatitis B infection, liver cirrhosis, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage, and portal vein tumor thrombus (P<.05).

There was no major difference between median progression-free survival among the first-line treatments of tislelizumab, camrelizumab, and tislelizumab plus TACE (not reached vs 4.4 months vs 3.6 months; P=.5178). Researchers reported that the 3 therapy options demonstrated similar objective response rates (25.0% vs 28.6% vs 28.6%; P=.927) and disease control rates (73.1% vs 78.6% vs 64.3%; P=.573).

“It was recommended to consider patient characteristics associated with therapeutic options when making clinical decisions,” the researchers wrote. “Prospective randomized, controlled studies with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up times are warranted further to verify the potential clinical benefits of PD-1 inhibitors.”