Table 2.
Baseline characteristics of 14 comparative studies and patients
| Authors (year) [Ref] | Study Design | Region | Patients | CPS | BCLC | ECOG | Aetiology | Treatment | Quality Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin et al. (2010) a [43] | Prospective | several countries | 150 | ST:B = 31% DT:B = 39% | NA | NA | NA | ST, n = 30; DT, n = 120. | 17 |
| Kudo et al. (2011) [15] | Phase III Randomized | Japan | 229 | A = 100% | NA | 0 = 87% 1 = 13% | HBV = 20% HCV = 60% | Sorafenib was given 1–3 months after TACE till progression | 18 |
| South Korea | |||||||||
| Sansonno et al. (2012) [44] | Phase II prospective randomized | Italy | 40 | A = 100% | B = 100% | 0 = 86% 1 = 24% | HCV = 100% | Sorafenib started 1 month after TACE till progression nor unacceptable toxicity | 4 |
| Lencioni et al. (2012) a [10] | Phase II prospective randomized | several countries | 307 | A = 100% | B = 100% | 0 = 100% | NA | Continuous sorafenib 3–7d before TACE | 4 |
| Qu et al. (2012) [45] | Retrospective | China | 45 | A = 65% B = 35% | B = 35% C = 65% | 0 = 95% 1 = 5% | HBV = 100% | Sorafenib started after TACE | 17 |
| Bai et al. (2013) [46] | Prospective | China | 82 | A = 77% B = 23% | B = 23% C = 77% | 0 = 36.5% 1 = 46.5% | HBV = 87.9% HCV = 4.9% | Continuous sorafenib started within 14d after TACE | 19 |
| 2 = 14.6% | |||||||||
| 3 = 1.2% | |||||||||
| 4 = 1.2% | |||||||||
| Muhammad et al. (2013) a [47] | Retrospective | USA | 43 | ST:A = 85% DT:A = 77% | A = 46% B = 15% C = 38% | NA | ST:HCV = 69% DT:HCV = 93% | Sorafenib started with 200 mg bid and then increased to 400 mg in the majority of patients | 20 |
| Huang et al. (2013) [48] | Prospective | China | 155 | NA | NA | NA | NA | Sorafenib started within 2 weeks of the first cycle of TACE | 14 |
| Hu et al. (2014) [14] | Retrospective | China | 280 | ST:A = 70.7% T:A = 67.7% | B = 100% | NA | ST:HBV = 82.9% T:HBV = 79.8% | Sorafenib after TACE | 20 |
| Ohki et al. (2015) [6] | Retrospective | Japan | 95 | ST:A = 70.8% T:A = 56.3% | NA | NA | ST:HCV = 75.0% T:HCV = 67.6% | Sorafenib was started within 2 weeks after TACE | 17 |
| Yao et al. (2016) [12] | Prospective | China | 150 | A = 84% B = 16% | B = 42% C = 58% | 0 = 42% 1 = 58% | ST:HBV = 84% T:HBV = 83% | Sorafenib therapy was initiated within 1 week before or after the initial TACE treatment | 20 |
| Zhang et al. (2016) [49] | Retrospective | China | 20 | A = 100% | NA | 0 = 85% 1 = 15% | HBV = 80% | Sorafenib was given with an interval of 4-7 days before or after TACE session | 19 |
| Wan et al. (2016) [50] | Retrospective | China | 450 | A = 87% B = 13% | NA | 0–1 = 91% 2 = 9% | NA | Oral sorafenib was administrated before or after TACE | 14 |
| Varghese et al. (2017) [13] | Retrospective | India | 124 | B:A = 55.9% B = 44.1% C:A = 46.2% B = 53.8% | B = 47.6% C = 52.4% | NA | B:HBV = 37.3% HCV = 18.7% C:HBV = 26.2% HCV = 23% | Sorafenib was introduced 5d after TACE | 17 |
Abbreviations: BCLC The Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer, CPS Child-Pugh classification, ECOG Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, NA not available, ST sorafenib plus TACE, DT DEB –TACE, HBV hepatitis B virus, HCV hepatitis C virus, MINORS methodological index for non-randomized studies
a TACE with drug-eluting beads (DEB) was performed in the studies. Patients in other studies treated with conventional TACE (c-TACE). Quality assessment of RCT trial adopted Jadad scale. Scores of non-randomized experimental study were assessed by MINORS