Sustained virologic suppression is a primary goal of therapy for chronic hepatitis B (CHB). In study entecavir (ETV)-C hronic hepatitis B (CHB) affects over 350 million people worldwide. Long-term complications of infection include cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which together cause over 500,000 deaths annually. 1,2 CHB patients with an elevated viral load (ongoing viral replication) have the highest risk of progressing to these life-threatening complications. 3,4 To avoid or minimize liver disease progression, CHB treat-

Purpose To compare the clinical outcomes of sorafenib plus either erlotinib or placebo in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a multicenter, multinational, randomized, phase III trial. Patients and Methods Patients with advanced HCC and underlying Child-Pugh class A cirrhosis, who were naive to systemic treatment (N = 720), were randomly assigned to sorafenib plus either erlotinib (n = 362) or placebo (n = 358). The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Results Median OS was similar in the sorafenib plus erlotinib and sorafenib plus placebo groups (9.5 v 8.5 months, respectively; hazard ratio [HR], 0.929; P = .408), as was median time to progression (3.2 v 4.0 months, respectively; HR, 1.135; P = .18). In the sorafenib/erlotinib arm versus the sorafenib/placebo arm, the overall response rate trended higher (6.6% v 3.9%, respectively; P = .102), whereas the disease control rate was significantly lower (43.9% v 52.5%, respectively; P = .021). The median durations of treatment with sorafenib were 86 days in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm and 123 days in the sorafenib/placebo arm. In the sorafenib/erlotinib and sorafenib/placebo arms, the rates of treatment-emergent serious AEs (58.0% v 54.6%, respectively) and drug-related serious AEs (21.0% v 22.8%, respectively) were similar. AEs matched the known safety profiles of both agents, but rates of rash/desquamation, anorexia, and diarrhea were higher in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm, whereas rates of alopecia and hand-foot skin reaction were higher in the sorafenib/placebo arm. Withdrawal rates for AEs during cycles 1 to 3 were higher in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm. Conclusion Adding erlotinib to sorafenib did not improve survival in patients with advanced HCC.

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