Sorafenib improves survival in advancer liver cancer

Researchers have found that sorafenib (Nexavar®) increases survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), in a study presented at this years' American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

Sorafenib is a multi-kinase inhibitor that targets several tyrosine kinases and serine/threonine kinases involved in tumor cell proliferation and angiogenesis.

Sorafenib, is currently approved in the United States for treating approved for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have failed prior interferon-alpha or interleukin-2 based therapy or are considered unsuitable for such therapy

In this Phase III trial, 602 patients with advanced HCC received sorafenib or placebo. Sorafenib significantly increased overall survival by 44%, compared with those patients receiving placebo (p=0.0006). The incidence of adverse side effects was similar between the two groups (52% percent in the sorafenib group and 54% for placebo). Patients who received sorafenib lived a median of 10.7 months compared with 7.9 months for those who received a placebo. Time to cancer progression was also significantly longer with sorafenib vs. placebo (5.5 vs. 2.8 months). Due to these positive findings, the study was terminated early.

Author’s conclusions ‘Sorafenib was well tolerated and is the first agent to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in overall survival for pts with advanced HCC. This effect is clinically meaningful and establishes sorafenib as first-line treatment for these patients.