BEACON-HCC: Best evidence and north american consensus on treatment allocation for hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a major cause of cancer-related mortality. Optimal treatment decisions are challenging, and existing treatment allocation frameworks may not fully reflect the evolving therapeutic landscape or contemporary clinical practices in North America.

Using a modified Delphi process, a multidisciplinary panel of 20 North American experts in hepatology, medical oncology, surgery, radiology, and radiation oncology developed a consensus-based treatment framework for HCC, termed the BEACON-HCC system. The framework was informed by current evidence and expert opinion through iterative discussion and voting. In a pilot study using 29 real-world patient cases, we assessed concordance between external expert recommendations and BEACON-HCC recommendations and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) 2025 treatment recommendations.

The BEACON-HCC treatment allocation framework diverges from prior frameworks by incorporating nuanced clinical features such as degree of intrahepatic tumor burden and vascular invasion, and adverse tumor prognostic markers, to align treatment allocation with tumor biology and therapeutic potential. Key innovations include the incorporation of emerging modalities such as external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), transarterial radioembolization (TARE), and systemic-locoregional combination therapies. In the pilot exercise, expert treatment decisions showed 96.6% concordance with BEACON-HCC recommendations and 72.4% concordance with BCLC recommendations.

BEACON-HCC is a consensus-based framework for treatment allocation that incorporates the expanding range of therapeutic options available to patients in the North American HCC population. Expert treatment decisions showed a high concordance with the BEACON-HCC system; further validation using empiric clinical data is planned through the HCC-Live Consortium.