Number of Arteries Treated in Patients Undergoing TACE for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

An analysis sought to determine whether the number of arteries treated during transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) significantly affects treatment outcomes. The findings were presented at the Symposium on Clinical Interventional Oncology 2023.

“Although selectivity of TACE has been shown to affect radiologic outcomes, no evaluation of the number of feeding arteries that are treated when normalizing for treatment selectivity has been performed,” the researchers said. “This is of interest because the complexity of arterial supply may affect the ability to treat the entirety of the lesion effectively and thus influence treatment outcomes.”

In this retrospective, single-center study, researchers assessed 198 patients who underwent treatment for 317 HCCs between January 2018 and December 2022. They recorded data on tumor location, radiologic response to treatment, complications, time to progression (TTP), and radiologic response (RR).

The results found that RR did not differ significantly between the 2 groups, either after initial treatment (one artery: complete response [CR], 138 of 244 [56.6%]; partial response [PR], 59 of 244 [24.2%]) or after maximal RR (one artery: CR, 163 of 244 [66.8%]; PR, 54 of 244 [22.1%]).

The investigators noted that TTP also did not vary by number of arteries treated. “There is no significant difference in the RR or TTP in patients who are treated for HCC with TACE of one or more than one artery when controlling for selectivity,” they concluded.