A comprehensive intervention on feasibility, efficacy, and safety between TAE combined with multi-applicator ablation therapy and TACE in the treatment of large hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common tumors in recent days with high mortality and low early diagnosis rate, resulting in the fourth leading cause of deaths globally. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, and safety between transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) therapy followed by multi-applicator ablation and transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for the treatment of large HCC. METHODS: An intervention study conducted at the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, with whom had large HCC. A comparison between the two groups (intervention and control group) was evaluated at different time dimensions by repeated-measures analysis of variance, Mann-Whitney U rank-sum test, where Kaplan-Meier and log-rank test calculated for the overall survival (OS), tumor response (TR), and progression-free survival (PFS). RESULTS: This study found the improved survival rate (SR) and PFS after 1-year treatment in the observation group (Group-I) by 56.4% and 12.8%, compared to 38.3% and 8.5% in the control group (Group-II). Likewise, 1- and 2-year OS rates (OSRs) in Group-I were 66.7% and 51.4%, wherein Group-II were 48.9% and 30.0%, respectively. The short-term efficacy of Group-I, such as complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), progressive disease (PD) were 28.21%, 56.41%, 0, 15.38%, while in Group-II was 2.13%, 68.79%, 6.38% 22.70% respectively, which were significant. The short-term efficacy was more excellent in the Group-I than Group-II. The quality of life (QOL) was better in Group-I than that of Group-II. CONCLUSIONS: TAE combined with multi-applicator ablation therapy is safer, effective with prolonged survival, and less severe adverse reactions compared to TACE therapy for the treatment of large HCC.