Aims: Reports suggest HCV-HCC patients do not respond as well to the IFN-free DAAs, but background risks and confounders for treatment failures may not have been adequately controlled. Our goal was to compare SVR12 of DAAs in East Asian patients with ...
Aims: Reports suggest HCV-HCC patients do not respond as well to the IFN-free DAAs, but background risks and confounders for treatment failures may not have been adequately controlled. Our goal was to compare SVR12 of DAAs in East Asian patients with HCV-HCC to those without HCC using PSM to balance the HCC and non-HCC groups.
Methods: Data were from 10 study centers comprising of 30 clinical sites in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan representing the Real-World Evidence from the Asia Liver Consortium for Chronic Hepatitis C (REAL-C) - a registry of patients treated with IFN-free DAAs in routine practice (n=3702). 1:1 PSM matching on cirrhosis, prior treatment, baseline platelet, age, sex, baseline HCV RNA, treatment regimen, baseline ALT, HCV genotype, and BMI was used to balance the groups at baseline.
Results: In our cohort, there were 195 patients with HCC at baseline or prior to DAA initiation and 3507 patients who did not have HCC at baseline. Prior to PSM, HCC patients were significantly older, more likely male, more likely to have renal insufficiency, cirrhosis, and decompensation (all P< 0.004). After PSM, there were 171 HCC and N=171 non-HCC patients for analysis. As shown in Table 1, there were no significant differences in the baseline characteristics between the matched HCC and non-HCC cohorts. The majority (51-55%) of both groups received LDV/SOF; eight (three HCC, five non-HCC) stopped treatment before completion while ~10-12% had an adverse reaction (most common: anemia [ >~5-6%] and fatigue [~3-5%]). There were seven deaths: five in the HCC group (four were liver-related) and two in the non-HCC group (both were non-liver-related). Overall, SVR12 rate was >96% for both groups with no significant differences. (Table 2)
Conclusions: This PSM study compared treatment for HCV patients with/without HCC, finding no difference in treatment tolerability, completion, and cure rates.