Conditions: Liver Cancer
Keywords: adult primary hepatocellular carcinoma advanced adult primary liver cancer recurrent adult primary liver cancer
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 95
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
RATIONALE: Monoclonal antibodies, such as bevacizumab, can block tumor growth in different ways. Some block the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. Others find tumor cells and help kill them or carry tumor-killing substances to them. Erlotinib and sorafenib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Bevacizumab, erlotinib, and sorafenib may also stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking blood flow to the tumor. It is not yet known whether giving bevacizumab together with erlotinib is more effective than giving sorafenib in treating patients with liver cancer.

PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying how well giving bevacizumab together with erlotinib works compared with sorafenib as first-line therapy in treating patients with advanced liver cancer.

Detailed description:
OBJECTIVES:

Primary

* To estimate the overall survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with bevacizumab and erlotinib hydrochloride vs sorafenib tosylate.

Secondary

* To estimate the event-free survival and tumor response rate of these patients.
* To evaluate the safety and tolerability of these regimens in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

* Arm I: Patients receive bevacizumab IV over 30-90 minutes on days 1 and 15 and oral erlotinib hydrochloride once daily on days 1-28.
* Arm II: Patients receive oral sorafenib tosylate twice daily on days 1-28. In both arms, courses repeat every 28 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

After completion of study treatment, patients are followed at 30 days and then every 3 months for 1 year.

Arms:
arm 1: Patients receive bevacizumab IV over 30-90 minutes on days 1 and 15 and oral erlotinib hydrochloride once daily on days 1-28. arm 2: Patients receive oral sorafenib tosylate twice daily on days 1-28.

Interventions: intervention 1: bevacizumab intervention 2: erlotinib hydrochloride intervention 3: sorafenib tosylate
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Given IV intervention 2: Given orally intervention 3: Given orally

Protocol document: