Comparing the clinical efficacy and safety of second-line targeted therapy and immunotherapy in patients with mid- to advanced stages of hepatocellular carcinoma – A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

J.-F. Li, Y.-X. Fu, H.-C. Zhang, H. Ma, G.-J. Yuan, Y. Tan

Department of Oncology, Dianjiang People’s Hospital of Chongqing, Chongqing, China. leajunfeng@tutanota.com

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy and safety of second-line immunotherapy and targeted treatment in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January 2000 to January 2023, ProQuest, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using immunotherapy or targeted therapy as second-line therapy for mid-to-advanced stages of HCC. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and adverse events (AEs) are all examples of measures of success.

RESULTS: This analysis included twenty Randomized Clinical Trials (RCTs) from phases II and III. Collective data revealed better OS with immunotherapy (HR = 0.79; 95% CI: 0.67, 0.93 vs. 0.85; 95% CI: 0.78, 0.92), while the targeted therapy played a more effective role in PFS (0.67; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.81). Also, the second-line immunotherapy had a lower odds ratio of AEs of grades 3-5 than the targeted therapy did (OR = 1.75; 95% CI = 0.89, 3.46).

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, it appears that targeted medication and immunotherapy as a second-line treatment strategy have generally improved substantially, as well as progression-free survival for patients with mid-to-advanced HCC. Although it is difficult to judge their efficiency, the occurrences of AEs were greater in targeted therapy compared to immunotherapy.

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