A real-world study of Chinese hepatocellular carcinoma patients treated with TACE

The aim of the study was to explore the real situation of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) treatment mode and clinical benefits for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, as well as to potentially provide data support and clinical basis for the decision-making of HCC patients.

We collect the diagnosis and treatment information of patients who were clinically diagnosed with primary liver cancer (PLC) and received the first treatment in the medical center since January 1st, 2012 from the Chinese Liver Cancer Survey (CLCS) database. Then, we entered the formatted data into the real-world study (RWS) database. TACE-related data were collected prospectively. From December 2018 to January 2020, HCC patients who were eligible for CLCS and received TACE were treated at three time points (admission day/before TACE, before discharge/after TACE, follow-up/first follow-up after discharge) to collect and analyze the quality of life of patients and the use of medical resources. Patients with clinical diagnosis of HCC who received TACE treatment at least once were screened based on CLCS locking data. Demographic and TACE treatment related studies were conducted on the selected HCC patients.

The data of the whole group of 5436 HCC patients who received TACE treatment in 48 medical centers showed that the first department of patients was surgery (65.89%), followed by internal medicine (22.42%) (p>0.05). The proportion of patients treated with TACE was 51.85%; the proportion of patients treated with 2 TACE was 23.64%; the proportion of patients with more than 3 times was 20.60% (p>0.05). In the CLCS database, the TACE-first group, there were 1758 patients who received only one treatment in total, and 3069 patients who received ≥ 2 treatments (p<0.05). The common complications related to TACE treatment were nausea (25.77%), fever (31.53%), vomiting (20.99%), liver pain (40.67%) and other uncomfortable symptoms (p<0.05).

A more comprehensive understanding of the clinical impact and benefits of TACE in Chinese HCC patients is needed.