The Efficacy of Continued Sorafenib Treatment after Radiologic Confirmation of Progressive Disease in Patients with Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Whether radiologically detected progressive disease (PD) is an accurate metric for discontinuing sorafenib treatment in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unclear. We investigated the efficacy of sorafenib treatment after radiologic confirmation of PD in patients with advanced HCC. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed HCC patients treated with sorafenib at Kyushu Medical Center. Six of the 92 patients with radiologically confirmed PD were excluded because they were classified as Child-Pugh C or had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS) ≥3; 86 patients were ultimately enrolled. RESULTS: Among the 86 patients, 47 continued sorafenib treatment after radiologic confirmation of PD (the continuous group), whereas 39 did not (the discontinuous group). The median survival time (MST) in the continuous group after confirmation was 12.9 months compared with 4.5 months in the discontinuous group (p <0.01). The time to progression in the continuous group after confirmation was 2.6 months compared with 1.4 months in the discontinuous group (p <0.01); it was 4.2 months and 2.1 months in patients who had received sorafenib ≥4 months and <4 months, respectively, before confirmation (p = 0.03). In these subgroups, the post-PD MST was 16.7 months and 9.6 months, respectively (p < 0.01). Independent predictors of overall survival after radiologic detection of PD were (hazard ratio, confidence interval): ECOG PS <2 (0.290, 0.107–0.880), Barcelona Clinical Liver Cancer stage B (0.146, 0.047–0.457), serum α-fetoprotein level ≥400 ng/mL (2.801, 1.355–5.691), and post-PD sorafenib administration (0.279, 0.150–0.510). CONCLUSION: Continuing sorafenib treatment after radiologic confirmation of PD increased survival in patients with advanced HCC. Therefore, radiologically detected PD is not a metric for discontinuation of sorafenib treatment in such patients.