Observational Prospective Study on Chemoembolization With Doxorubicin for Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common type of cancer in men and the seventh in women and is the third most common cause of death from cancer worldwide. The overall incidence of HCC remains high in developing countries and is steadily rising in most industrialized countries. TACE with Doxorubicin-eluting beads (DEB-TACE) has recently been developed as a novel therapy option for HCC. In order to maximize its therapeutic efficacy, doxorubicin-loaded beads were developed to deliver higher doses of the chemotherapeutic agent and to prolong its permanence within the tumor. The comparison of efficacy and safety of TACE with drug-eluting microspheres in comparison with conventional TACE (cTACE) showed that response and time to progression in the group was significantly higher than that of the cTACE group. TACE with drug-eluting microspheres thus appears to be a feasible and promising approach to the treatment of HCC. This study's purpose is evaluating treatment efficacy, survival rate and safety of TACE using drug-eluting microspheres loaded with doxorubicin for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.