Efficacy and safety of CalliSpheres microsphere versus conventional transcatheter arterial chemoembolization in treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma: A Meta-analysis

Objective  To investigate the efficacy and safety of CalliSpheres microsphere-transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (CSM-TACE) versus conventional transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (cTACE) in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through a meta-analysis. Methods  PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang Data, and VIP were searched for all Chinese and English articles on the application of CSM-TACE and cTACE in HCC published up to the end of October, 2020. After quality assessment was performed for the articles included, RevMan 5.3 software provided by Cochrane Library was used for analysis. Results  A total of 15 studies were included, with 1535 patients in total. This meta-analysis showed that compared with the patients receiving cTACE, the patients receiving CSM-TACE had significantly higher 1-year overall survival rate (odds ratio [OR]=2.26, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.63-3.13, P 0.05). Conclusion  CSM-TACE has significant advantages in improving 1- and 2-year overall survival rates and 2-year progression-free survival rates and can significantly reduce the incidence rates of postoperative vomiting, bone marrow suppression, and neutropenia. Therefore, CSM-TACE is a safe and effective treatment method.