Post-TACE Combination Therapy of Heparin and Octreotide Results in Decreased Tumor Metastasis in Extrahepatic Tumorigenesis

Primary hepatocarcinoma is the most common type of malignant tumor and a leading cause of cancer mortality. Standard treatment for patients with advanced primary hepatocarcinoma for whom surgery is not recommended includes transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Within these patients 44% develop metastasis within 1 year. Thus, understanding the events underlying the recurrent tumors and developing therapies in conjunction with TACE would be of great benefit. Reducing tumor angiogenesis by combining the somatostatin analog octreotide with small doses of heparin is one approach in decreasing metastasis rates by targeting VEGF and heparinase, respectively. Given this, we investigated whether a heparin and octreotide combination treatment administered post-TACE would decrease the tumor metastasizing rate in primary hepatocarcinoma. A total of 147 patients diagnosed with primary hepatocarcinoma were admitted to the study and received 2-4 TACE treatments and were monitored for 1 year. Of these 84 received the heparin plus octreotide combination treatment and 63 did not (control group). All patients were monitored for adverse reactions, coagulation ability, and tumor metastasis. We found a significant decrease in the incidence of tumor metastasis in patients receiving the combination treatment post-TACE for up to 1 year with no significant toxic or adverse effects. Thus, we propose using the combination treatment of heparin and octreotide post-TACE in the treatment of recurrent tumorigenesis in primary hepatocarcinoma.