Effects of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The potential benefits and safety of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) for the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted this meta-analysis of evaluate the efficacy and safety of HAIC in the treatment of HCC. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was performed using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane library to identify eligible studies that compared HAIC with other therapies for patients with HCC. The main outcomes of our interest, including overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and adverse events, were calculated using the meta-analysis. The pooled estimates were expressed with hazard ratio (HR) with 95%confidence intervals (95%CIs) or risk ratio (RR) with 95%CIs. RESULTS: A total of 13 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this meta-analysis. Pooled estimates showed that, HAIC was associated with significantly improved OS (HR = 0.61, 95%CI: 0.48, 0.77; P < .001) and DFS (HR = 0.66, 95%CI: 0.52, 0.84; P = .001) as compared with other therapies. The ORR (RR = 2.28, 95%CI: 1.77, 2.94; P < .001) and DCR (RR = 1.47, 95%CI: 1.23, 1.77; P < .001) were also significantly higher in HAIC group than in control group. Most of the common adverse events were comparably occurred in the 2 groups, except for nausea/vomiting, hypoalbuminemia, pain, anemia and hepatic toxicity. Subgroup analysis suggested that, the improved OS and DFS associated with HAIC were only observed in patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), or advanced HCC, but not in those with unresectable HCC or pancreatic liver metastases. CONCLUSION: Based on the present data, HAIC showed benefit effect in HCC patients, with pronged OS and DFS, as well as increased ORR and DCR. These benefit effects were more obvious in CRLM or advanced HCC patients. However, considering the potential limitations, more large-scale, randomized trials are needed to verify our findings.