The efficacy and safety of different pharmacological interventions for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer: A network meta-analysis

Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is the second common cancer in liver cancer. Chemotherapy is the mainstay of treatments for patients with advanced or metastatic disease, while fluorouracil (FU)-based and gemcitabine (GEM)-based treatments are most widely applied. This NMA aimed to figure out whether the addition of platinum (PLA) and target agents (TAR) can influence the efficacy and safety of standard chemotherapy. Network meta-analysis (NMA) was conducted based on the records from PubMed, Embase and Cochrane. Eligible data was extracted from available qualified trials and outcomes. Software R 3.2.3 and STATA 13.0 were used to conduct the Bayesian NMA, calculating odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% credible interval (CrI) to evaluate different treatments.Almost all treatments were superior to best supportive care (BSC) and FU in terms of 1-OS, 2-OS and 1-PFS. GEM+PLA and GEM+PLA+TAR exhibited better efficacy than most treatments in 1-OS, 2-OS and 1-PFS, and yielded better results than BSC and GEM+FU in terms of 2-PFS. Most drug-containing treatments reported higher overall response rate (ORR) than BSC. GEM and GEM+FU were associated with a higher risk of neutropenia and thrombocytopenia compared to FU, FU+PLA and GEM+PLA. No statistical difference was detected in terms of nausea and vomiting.GEM+PLA and GEM+PLA+TAR were both efficacious and were associated with fewer adverse events. In conclusion, the addition of PLA can significantly improve the efficacy of FU and GEM-based treatments, and the addition of TAR to GEM+PLA can contribute to further improvement, but with a mild increase of adverse events.