Sorafenib combined with percutaneous radiofrequency ablation for the treatment of medium-sized hepatocellular carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: Sorafenib, an oral multikinase inhibitor, is the proved therapy method for patients with advanced hepatocellu - lar carcinoma (HCC). Based on heat delivery, Ra - diofrequency ablation (RFA) has been found to achieve complete neoplasm necrosis. It is the most widely performed percutaneous therapy for HCC. However, Study associated combined So - rafenib with RFA therapy for patients with ad - vanced HCC has never been reported.The aim of present study is to explore the efficacy and safe - ty of sorafenib combined with RFA therapy for the patients with medium-sized HCC. PATIENTS AND METHODS : A total of 62 pa - tients diagnosed as HCC were involved in this study. All patients were randomly assigned to sorafenib and RFA (n=30) or RFA-alone (n=32) treatment groups. Treatment outcomes, includ - ing recurrence rates, time to progression (TTP) and adverse reactions induced by sorafenib were observed and recorded to assess the effi - cacy and safety of the combination method. RESULTS: During the overall follow-up period, the recurrence rate of the combination sub - group was 56.7% (17/30), and that of the RFA- alone subgroup was 87.5% (28/32) ( p < 0.01). The medianTTP was 17.0 months in the combi - nation therapy vs. 6.1 months in the RFA-alone (p < 0.05). Hand-foot skin reactions were report - ed by 83.3% (25/30) of patients and 46.7% (14/30) reported diarrhea while the most ad - verse events (AEs) were mild to moderate in the combination subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: Sorafenib combined with RFA significantly decreased recurrence rates and prolonged the survival time of medium- sized HCC patients.The combination therapy is