Table 1. Selected studies of adjuvant TACE in ICC.
| Reference | Study type | Arms and interventions | Patients, n intervention/observation | Main findings | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shen et al. (2011)56 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 53/72 | Patients with recurrence time ≤ 3 months: improved 1-, 3-, 5-year OS with TACE. | TACE can eradicate recurrent foci in remnant liver and control early recurrence. |
| Wu et al. (2012)57 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 57/57 | Patients with poor prognostic factors: improved 1-, 3-, 5-year OS and DFS with TACE. | Poor prognostic factors: tumor size ≥ 5 cm, advanced TNM stage (stage III or IV). |
| Li et al. (2014)58 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 68/143 | TNM stage II, III, and IV patients: improved OS with TACE. | TNM stage I patients: higher recurrence rate with TACE. |
| Li et al. (2015)59 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 122/431 | Patients with nomogram scores ≥ 77: improved 1-, 3-, 5-year OS and recurrence rate with TACE. | ICC nomogram: CEA, CA19-9, tumor diameter, tumor number, vascular invasion, lymph node metastasis, direct invasion and local metastasis; study with the largest sample size. |
| Jeong et al. (2017)60 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 9/33 | ICC with arterial phase enhancement on CT scans: improved 1-, 3-, 5-year OS with TACE. | HBV-associated ICC; preoperative CT scan manifestation can serve as a selection criterion for TACE candidates; limited by small sample. size |
| Lu et al. (2017)61 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 89/183 | Patients with GGT levels > 54 U/L: improved OS with TACE. | PSM; preoperative serum GGT level can serve as a selection criterion for TACE candidates. |
| Wang et al. (2020)62 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 39/296 | Patients with stage II, III or risk factors < 2: improved OS with TACE. | PSM; the incidence of patients having adjuvant TACE is relatively low (11.6%). |
| Cheng et al. (2021)63 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 68/155 | Patients with elevated CA19-9 or no lymphadenectomy: improved OS with TACE. | PSM and IPTW; all patients have microvascular invasion. |
| Liu et al. (2021)64 | Retrospective | TACE vs. observation | 35/234 | TNM stage I patients: TACE cannot prolong OS; instead, TACE might increase the recurrence risk. | All patients have TNM stage I disease; relatively low proportions (13.0%) of patients receive adjuvant TACE. |
CEA, carcino-embryonic antigen; CA19-9, carbohydrate antigen 19–9; DFS, disease-free survival; CT, computed tomography; GGT, gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase; HBV, hepatitis B virus; ICC, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma; IPTW, inverse probability of treatment weighting; LR, liver resection; OS, overall survival; PSM, propensity score matching; TACE, transcatheter arterial chemoembolization; TNM, tumor-node-metastasis.