Short-term therapeutic effects of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization using miriplatin-lipiodol suspension for hepatocellular carcinoma

To retrospectively investigate the short-term therapeutic effects and adverse effects associated with the use of miriplatin-lipiodol suspension for transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), using TACE with cisplatin-lipiodol suspension as the historical control. The study was conducted on 48 and 50 consecutive patients with HCC who underwent TACE with miriplatin-lipiodol suspension and cisplatin-lipiodol suspension, respectively. Therapeutic effect was evaluated by mRECIST. Adverse effects were graded by CTCAE, version 4.0. The therapeutic and adverse effects were compared using Fisher's exact test and multivariate logistic regression. Complete remission, partial response, stable disease and progressive disease were observed in 37.5, 18.8, 33.3 and 10.4 % of patients in the miriplatin group, with the corresponding percentages being 54.0, 32.0, 14.0 and 0.0 %, respectively, in the cisplatin group. The short-term therapeutic effects were statistically significantly worse in the miriplatin group than in the cisplatin group, even after adjustment for tumor size and Child-Pugh class. The rates of nausea and serum creatinine elevation were statistically significantly lower in the miriplatin group (p < 0.05). TACE using miriplatin-lipiodol suspension yielded worse short-term responses than cisplatin-lipiodol suspension; however, the rates of adverse events were significantly lower in the miriplatin group.