Abstract 1456: The safety and efficacy of lenvatinib in preventing early recurrence after liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma beyond Milan criteria: A single-center, retrospective, propensity-matched study
Authors: Yang Xin-Rong , Guo De-Zhen , Zhou Jian , Fan Jia 
Published: July 2021

Background: Lenvatinib is currently available as the first-line treatment for advanced unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. The safety and efficacy of lenvatinib in preventing early recurrence after liver transplantation (LTx) beyond Milan criteria is still unclear.

Methods: During August 2018 to September 2019, 181 patients who underwent LTx beyond Milan criteria at Zhongshan Hospital were retrospective analyzed. Among them, 30 patients were administered lenvatinib after LTx. Propensity score matching (PSM) strategy at 1:2 ratio was adopted to offset differences between two groups.

Results: Before PSM, lenvatinib group (n = 30) tended to have more advanced tumors than control group (n = 151). In survival analysis, lenvatinib group showed comparable overall survival (OS) (P = 0.078) and time to recurrence (TTR) (P = 0.120) with control group. After PSM, the clinical baseline in lenvatinib group (n = 30) was similar with the control group (n = 60). We found that post-LTx lenvatinib administration could significantly reduce postoperative tumor recurrence and prolong median TTR (not reached vs. 14.60 months, P=0.019) after LTx, compared with untreated PSM controls. The rate of early recurrences (≤1 year) was also significantly deceased in the lenvatinib group (20.0% vs. 41.7%, p=0.041). We found that the patients with lenvatinib treatment had a propensity of improved OS compared with the matched control group (24-month OS, 92.5% vs 74.3%; P = 0.069). Multivariate regression analysis indicated that post-LTx lenvatinib was an independent protective factor for tumor recurrence after operation (HR = 0.388; 95%CI, 0.186-0.809; P = 0.012).We found that post-LTx lenvatinib administration could reduce tumor recurrence in the patients with tumor size&gt;5cm (P=0.019), multiple tumor (P=0.016), tumor differentiation III-IV (P=0.033), without PVTT (P=0.009), and post-LTx AFP &gt;20ng/ml (one month after LTx)(P=0.010). The treatment-related adverse events occurred in most patients (28/30, 93.3%) received post-LTx lenvatinib treatment, and grade 3 treatment-related adverse events occurred in nine (30.0%) patients. Apart from two (6.7%) patients withdrew lenvatinib due to unbearable adverse events and three (10.0%) patients get relieved after dose reduction, the other patients could tolerate adverse events after dealing with symptoms.

Conclusion: Post-LTx lenvatinib could serve as a safety and effective therapy to reduce tumor recurrence after LTx in HCC patients beyond Milan criteria.

Citation Format: Xin-Rong Yang, De-Zhen Guo, Jian Zhou, Jia Fan. The safety and efficacy of lenvatinib in preventing early recurrence after liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma beyond Milan criteria: A single-center, retrospective, propensity-matched study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 1456.