Liver decompensation is a frequent cause of treatment discontinuation and prognostic factor in intermediate-advanced HCC

Introduction and Objectives: With the advent of new therapeutic options for patients with hepatocellular car-cinoma (HCC) for intermediate or advanced stages of the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC), regional real -world data regarding prognostic survival factors are of significant importance. Patients and Methods: A multicenter prospective cohort study was conducted in Latin America including BCLC B or C patients since 15th May 2018. We report here the second interim analysis focusing on prognostic varia-bles and causes of treatment discontinuation. Cox proportional hazard survival analysis was performed, esti-mating hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: Overall, 390 patients were included, 55.1% and 44.9% were BCLC B and C at the time of study enroll-ment. Cirrhosis was present in 89.5% of the cohort. Among the BCLC-B group, 42.3% were treated with TACE with a median survival since the first session of 41.9 months. Liver decompensation before TACE was inde-pendently associated with increased mortality [HR 3.22 (CI 1.64;6.33); P<.001]. Systemic treatment was initi-ated in 48.2% of the cohort (n=188), with a median survival of 15.7 months. Of these, 48.9% presented first -line treatment discontinuation (44.4% tumor progression, 29.3% liver decompensation, 18.5% symptomatic deterioration, and 7.8% intolerance), and only 28.7% received second-line systemic treatments. Liver decom-pensation [HR 2.9 (1.64;5.29); P<.0001], and symptomatic progression [HR 3.9 (1.53;9.78); P=0.004] were independently associated with mortality after first-line systemic treatment discontinuation. Conclusions: The complexity of these patients, with one-third presenting liver decompensation after systemic therapies, underlines the need for multidisciplinary team management and the central role of hepatologists. (c) 2023 Fundacion Clinica Medica Sur, A.C. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)