Prognosis of transarterial chemoembolization-sorafenib compared to transarterial chemoembolization-alone in hepatocellular carcinoma stage C: a systematic review

Background: This systematic review aims to compare the prognosis of treatment transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) combined with sorafenib and TACE-alone in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with Barcelona clinic liver cancer-stage C (BCLC-C). Materials and methods: A systematic search was conducted on five electronic databases: PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, Embase, and Scopus. Studies were included if they compared overall survival (OS) of TACE-Sorafenib to TACE-alone in patients with HCC BCLC-C within the 2019–2023 timeframe. We excluded studies consisting of conference abstracts, letters, editorials, guidelines, case reports, animal studies, trial registries, and unpublished work. The selected articles were evaluated from August 2023 to September 2023. The journal’s quality was assessed with NOS for a non-randomized controlled trial. Results: This systematic review included four studies following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA). All four studies compared the OS of 401 patients with TACE-sorafenib to TACE-alone. Two studies compared time-to-progression (TTP), one study compared progression-free survival (PFS), and two studies compared disease control rate (DCR). There were various population criteria, TACE techniques used, risk factors, follow-up time, and adverse events. The collected evidence generally suggested that the combination of TACE-sorafenib is superior compared to TACE-alone. Due to a lack of essential data for the included study, a meta-analysis couldn't be performed. Conclusion: The results of this systematic review suggested that TACE-sorafenib combination therapy in patients with HCC BCLC-C improves OS superior compared to TACE-alone, without a notable increase in adverse events.