Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Influence of antiviral therapy on survival of patients with hepatitis B-associated hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing transarterial chemoembolization

Bing Li¹, An Chen², Xilin Du², Jianxing Zhan³

¹Department of General Surgery, Xiâ€™an Workerâ€™s Hospital, Xiâ€™an, Shanxi 710100; ²Department of General Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, Xiâ€™an, Shanxi, 710006; ³Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Xiâ€™an Aerospace General Hospital, Xiâ€™an, Shanxi 710100, China.

For correspondence:- Jianxing Zhan Email: judny.mouttet9910@hotmail.com Tel:+862985644119

Received: 6 March 2017 Accepted: 18 July 2017 Published: 31 August 2017

Citation: Li B, Chen A, Du X, Zhan J. Influence of antiviral therapy on survival of patients with hepatitis B-associated hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing transarterial chemoembolization. Trop J Pharm Res 2017; 16(8):1997-2005 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v16i8.33

© 2017 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To examine the prognostic value of antiviral therapy among hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients undergoing transarterial chemoembolization (TACE).

Methods: A total of 356 patients with HCC undergoing TACE were recruited for the purpose of current study. All the patients were categorized into two groups; antiviral (n = 132) and non-antiviral group (n = 224). All the clinical and laboratory parameters were noted at baseline. Patients were then followed up for five years. The mortality rates in two groups were evaluated with Kaplan-Meier estimate.

Results: The average age of the participants was 51.2 ± 6.17 years. A majority (329; 92.4 %) of the patients were male while females constituted only 7.6 %. During five years follow-up period, a total of 274 (76.9 %) died, with 89 patients belonging to the antiviral group while the remaining 185 patients were in the non-antiviral group. Mortality rate significantly differed between the antiviral and non-antiviral groups (67.4 % versus 82.5 %, p = 0.028). The results of Cox regression demonstrated that being a smoker, low serum albumin, local ablation and resection decreased overall survival while female gender, antiviral therapy, and early tumor site-node-metastatis (TNM) staging increased overall survival.

Conclusion: Antiviral therapy for underlying hepatitis B in HCC patients undergoing TACE prolongs overall survival and prevents or delays reactivation of tumor.

Keywords: Cancer, Chemoembolization, Hepatitis, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE)