Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Aug 27, 2025; 17(8): 108533
Published online Aug 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i8.108533
Response rates, survival status and adverse events of placebo in randomized control trials for hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis
Wei-Yu Chen, Qing Chen, Chen-Chen Wang, Chen-Yue Zhang, Si-Kun Chen, Zhi-Qiang Meng, Ping Han, Shu Dong, Qi-Wen Chen
Wei-Yu Chen, Department of Integrative Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center Xiamen Hospital, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Wei-Yu Chen, Qing Chen, Chen-Chen Wang, Chen-Yue Zhang, Zhi-Qiang Meng, Shu Dong, Qi-Wen Chen, Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai 200032, China
Qing Chen, Zhi-Qiang Meng, Shu Dong, Qi-Wen Chen, Department of Integrative Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai 200032, China
Chen-Chen Wang, Department of Medical Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai 200032, China
Chen-Yue Zhang, Department of Integrated Therapy, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai 200032, China
Si-Kun Chen, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
Ping Han, Department of Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States
Co-first authors: Wei-Yu Chen and Qing Chen.
Co-corresponding authors: Shu Dong and Qi-Wen Chen.
Author contributions: Chen Q and Chen WY contributed to conception or design of the work; Chen WY, Chen Q, Wang CC, and Dong S contributed to data collection and quality assessment; Chen WY and Chen SK contributed to analysis and interpretation of data; Chen WY, Chen Q, and Wang CC contributed to drafted the review; Zhang CY, Meng ZQ, Dong S, Han P, and Chen QW contributed to critical review and final approval; All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no conflict-of-interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2020 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2020 Checklist.
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: Qi-Wen Chen, MD, Department of Integrative Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, No. 270 Dongan Road, Shanghai 200032, China. cqwly@hotmail.com
Received: April 17, 2025
Revised: June 16, 2025
Accepted: July 24, 2025
Published online: August 27, 2025
Processing time: 132 Days and 20 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: While the therapeutic arm dominates hepatocellular carcinoma clinical trials, the placebo comparator serves as a critical but underutilized window into tumor biology. The natural course of hepatocellular carcinoma under placebo conditions remains poorly quantified, masking potential spontaneous stabilization mechanisms. Furthermore, placebo-associated adverse events in randomized controlled trials remain poorly characterized. Our meta-analysis addresses these gaps through systematically evaluated response rates, survival status and adverse events across placebo arms of hepatocellular carcinoma randomized controlled trials.