The clinical therapeutic effects of arsenic trioxide combined with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization in treating primary liver cancer with pulmonary metastases / 中华内科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the therapeutic effects of arsenic trioxide combined with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization on treatment of primary liver cancer with pulmonary metastases.Methods Sixty patients were randomly divided into two groups:group A (treatment group,n =30) and group B (control group,n =30).Group A was received periodic transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and 10 mg arsenic trioxide by intravenous infusion for 5 hours per day,3 days after TACE.Each cycle consisted of 14 days' administration,and repeated after 2 weeks.Each patient was received 3-4 successive cycles.Group B was received periodic TACE alone.Objective efficiency,benefit rate,quality of life and the correlates with metastatic tumor size and number in the both groups were recorded.Results The objective efficiency was 26.7％ (8/30),and the benefit rate was 60.0％ (18/30) in group A,while they were 0 and 16.7％ (5/30) in group B with significant statistics differences (x2 =7.067,P =0.008;x2 =11.915,P =0.001).The quality of life was improved in 4 patients and stable in 18 of group A,while no patient was improved and 13 were stable in group B (x2 =9.669,P =0.008).There was a significantly positive correlation between the tumor burden and therapeutic effect (Kendall r =-0.765,P ＜ 0.001 ;Spearman r =-0.821,P ＜ 0.001).Conclusion Arsenic trioxide combined TACE is an effective treatment method in treating primary liver cancer with pulmonary metastases.