Dr. Abou-Alfa on Embolization Versus Embolization Plus Systemic Therapy in HCC

Video

In Partnership With:

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a retrospective analysis that evaluated embolization versus embolization plus systemic therapy in patients with metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a retrospective analysis that evaluated embolization versus embolization plus systemic therapy in patients with metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Abou-Alfa says researchers were curious to see how patients fared when they were treated with local therapy versus systemic therapy. They found that patients with HCC that were given only embolization fared worse than patients in the control arm, who received sorafenib alone. Abou-Alfa says the median survival in the embolization-only arm was 6-7 months while median survival in the control arm was 10.7 months.

However, Abou-Alfa says, when patients received embolization plus systemic therapy, the median survival was greater than 1 year. The idea of combining embolization and systemic therapy needs to be studied further.

Related Videos
Shivaani Kummar, MBBS, FACP, Margaret and Lester DeArmond Endowed Chair of Cancer Research, Professor and Division Head, Division of Hematology/Medical Oncology, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine; co-director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics, co-deputy director, Knight Cancer Institute
Andre Goy, MD
Wenxin (Vincent) Xu, MD,
Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD
Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH
Joseph Mikhael, MD
Michael Richardson, MD
Minesh Mehta, MD
Ruben Olivares, MD
Phillip J. Koo, MD