Sorafenib Combined with Hepatectomy in Patients with Intermediate-Stage and Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

In 2017, a retrospective case-control study evaluated the use of sorafenib, a multikinase inhibitor, as adjuvant therapy in 81 patients with intermediate-stage and advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after hepatic resection. The study compared 27 patients who received sorafenib post-surgery to 54 who underwent surgery alone. Results showed a significant increase in median overall survival (OS) for the sorafenib group (18.6 months) compared to the surgery-only group (11.9 months, p = 0.014), particularly in patients with BCLC stage B disease. No significant difference in median time to recurrence (TTR) was observed between the groups. Sorafenib was well tolerated, with hand-foot skin reaction and diarrhea as the most common adverse events. The study suggests sorafenib as a beneficial adjuvant therapy for HCC post-surgery, especially for intermediate-stage patients, but acknowledges the need for larger, multicenter studies to confirm these findings.