A Prospective Cohort Study of the Effect of Lenvatinib Combined With TACE in Preventing the Recurrence in High-risk Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Postoperative recurrence and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC）is the main problem during the treatment. Although with the development of medical science, some drugs have been found for the prevention and treatment of postoperative recurrence of HCC (such as postoperative application of interferon to prevent early tumor recurrence), but there is still no drug widely recognized.

Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is a palliative treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma. TACE can detect the early recurrence of tumor after liver resection, and has a complementary treatment effect on hidden residual lesions. For patients with high-risk, the tumor recurrence rate can be significantly reduced, and the tumor-free survival can be prolonged by TACE. Therefore, patients with high-risk of recurrence after resection were routinely arranged TACE treatment as an adjuvant treatment after surgery.

Lenvatinib is a multi-target receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), which mainly inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) receptor-1, 2, 3; fibroblast growth factors(FGF) receptor-1, 2, 3, 4; platelet derived growth factor receptor(PDGFR)α; RET and KIT, thereby inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, inducing apoptosis, and acting as an anti-angiogenesis. The REFLECT study showed that the median overall survival(OS) of the patients in the lenvatinib group was 13.6 months (95% CI, 12.1-14.9) and that in the sorafenib group was 12.3 months (95% CI, 10.4-13.9) , which reached a non-inferiority end point (HR = 0.92; 95% CI, 0.79-1.06). In addition, all secondary endpoints in the lenvatinib group were significantly better than the sorafenib group. A subgroup analysis based on Chinese patients showed that the OS of Lenvatinib was significantly 4.8 months longer than sorafenib group (15.0 months vs 10.2 months). Other three secondary endpoints, progression-free survival(PFS) (9.2 months vs 3.6) and time to progression(TTP)(11.0 months vs 3.7 months) and objective response rate(ORR) (21.5% vs 8.3%), were also significantly better in Lenvatinib group. Based on the above datas, lenvatinib will become a new choice for Chinese patients with HCC. It has also been approved by the FDA and CFDA as the first-line treatment for patients with advanced HCC.

So, this study is to observe the effect of lenvatinib combined with TACE in preventing the recurrence in high-risk patients with HCC.