Wu DD, He XF, Tian C, Peng P, Chen CL, Liu XH, Pang HJ. Tumor-feeding artery diameter reduction is associated with improved short-term effect of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy plus lenvatinib treatment. World J Gastroenterol 2022; 28(26): 3232-3242 [PMID: 36051348 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i26.3232]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hua-Jin Pang, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Associate Professor, Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Department of General Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 1838 North Baiyun Avenue, Guangzhou 510515, Guangdong Province, China. nfyyphj@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 14, 2022; 28(26): 3232-3242 Published online Jul 14, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i26.3232
Tumor-feeding artery diameter reduction is associated with improved short-term effect of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy plus lenvatinib treatment
De-Di Wu, Xiao-Feng He, Chen Tian, Peng Peng, Hua-Jin Pang, Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Department of General Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, Guangdong Province, China
Chuan-Li Chen, Medical Imaging Center, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, Guangdong Province, China
Xue-Han Liu, Department of Statistics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430000, Hubei Province, China
Author contributions: Wu DD and Pang HJ designed this study; Wu DD, Tian C, and Chen CL performed the reconstruction and measurement; Wu DD, Liu XH, and Pang HJ analyzed the data; Peng P collected the clinical data; Wu DD wrote the paper; He XF and Pang HJ made critical revisions to the paper; all authors approved the publication of the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The research was conducted in accordance with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the medical ethics committee of Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University.
Informed consent statement: The requirement for informed consent was waived owing to the retrospective nature of the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There was no conflict of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hua-Jin Pang, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Associate Professor, Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Department of General Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 1838 North Baiyun Avenue, Guangzhou 510515, Guangdong Province, China. nfyyphj@163.com
Received: January 22, 2022 Peer-review started: January 22, 2022 First decision: March 8, 2022 Revised: March 17, 2022 Accepted: June 18, 2022 Article in press: June 18, 2022 Published online: July 14, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Combination of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) and lenvatinib has been frequently used to treat unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC) in China.
Research motivation
Shrinkage of hepatic arteries after the combination therapy is a common phenomenon and may early reflect the antitumor response, the relationship between which needs further exploration.
Research objectives
To investigate the relationship between hepatic artery diameters reduction and the short-term efficacy of HAIC plus lenvatinib.
Research methods
Sixty-seven patients with uHCC receiving HAIC plus lenvatinib were analyzed retrospectively. The modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors was used to assess the antitumor response after 1, 3, and 6 mo of treatment. The measurement of hepatic artery diameters before treatment and after 1 and 2 mo of treatment were conducted in a computed tomography image post-processing workstation. Meanwhile, the changes in tumor capillaries were also examined on pathological specimens before and after 1 mo of treatment.
Research results
All the hepatic artery diameters and the microvessel density in the tumor lesions were significantly decreased after the combination treatment (all P < 0.001). Shrinkage of the tumor-feeding artery (TFA) was significantly associated with the antitumor response after 1, 3, and 6 mo of treatment (P < 0.001, P = 0.004, and P = 0.023, respectively) and an independent factor for treatment efficacy (P = 0.001, P = 0.001, and P = 0.002 and 1, 3, and 6 mo, respectively).
Research conclusions
The retrospective study demonstrated that the shrinkage of the TFA diameter was closely related to improved short-term efficacy of treatment with HAIC plus lenvatinib for the first time.
Research perspectives
We believe the findings in this paper will be of interest to the researchers in uHCC. Further, prospective randomized multicenter trials are needed to confirm the relationship between the morphological change in TFA and the early therapeutic effect of uHCC treatment.
