A meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis of high intensity focused ultrasound ablation combined with transhepatic arterial chemotherapy and embolization for hepatoma

OBJECTIVE: The efficacy of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation(HIFU) combined with Transhepatic Arterial Chemotherapy And Embolization(TACE) versus TACE alone in the treatment of hepatoma was evaluated by meta-analysis and trial sequential analyses(TSA). METHODS: Pubmed, Cochrane, Embase, Web of Science, Scoups and CNKI, CQVIP, Wanfang Data(China National Knowledge Infrastructure) databases were searched from database construction to April 2022, and randomized controlled trials were included. Revman and Stata software were used for meta-analysis of tumor changes, survival rate, laboratory indicators and adverse reactions in the included studies, and TSA0.9 was used for sequential analysis. Grade Pro was also used to evaluate the included indicators. RESULTS: Twelve studies were included with a sample size of 1025 cases. Meta-analysis showed that the tumor response rate in the combined treatment group was 1.54 times higher than that in TACE alone (OR: 2.54; 95%CI:1.81-3.57) and the 6-month to 5-year survival rate was 1-4 times higher, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Subgroup analysis showed that country, pathological type and study type were the sources of heterogeneity. Egger results showed that there was no publication bias (95%CI: -1.333, 3.552; Ppublication=0.276), and the sensitivity analysis results were reliable. TSA results suggest that there may be false positive results, which need to be further confirmed by more studies. Grade evaluation results indicated that the quality of evidence for response rate and one-year survival was low. CONCLUSION: HIFU combined with TACE has better efficacy in the treatment of hepatoma, which is worthy of promotion. However, there may be false positive results in this study, which needs to be further verified by more extensive and more tests.