Drug-eluting beads versus conventional chemoembolization for the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis

Evaluation of drug-eluting beads versus conventional transcatheter arterial chemoembolization in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…All the studies, except for two studies [41,43], showed no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of age, gender ratio, Child-Pugh grading, tumor staging and tumor characteristics. The significant differences in the study [43] between the two groups were related to age, cirrhosis rate and prior curative treatments.…”

“…In this metaanalysis, the size of DEB and the drug dosage in the enrolled studies ranged from 50 m to 700 m, and 30 mg to 150 mg per vial, respectively, and the highest usage frequencies were 100 m to 500 m, and 50 mg to 75 mg, respectively. The drugs used in cTACE group included doxorubicin [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]30,36,37,41], epirubicin [18,42], cisplatin [16][17][18]23,30,44] and mitomycin-C [16,30,43] in selected studies, moreover, DEBs were loaded with one of the following drugs: doxorubicin [16,[18][19][20][21][22][23]30,36,[40][41][42][43][44] or epirubicin [17,29]. And doxorubicin was the most frequently used in both groups: 14 studies used it in DEB-TACE group and 12 studies used it in cTACE group.…”

“…The significant differences in the study [43] between the two groups were related to age, cirrhosis rate and prior curative treatments. In the study [41], the differences related to the MELD score. Except these two articles, which failed to provide the BCLC or OkudaChild Class of the selected patients, we pooled the data of 1464 out of 1696 patients in the remaining 14 studies in early (BCLC Class A Okuda-Child Class I) or intermediate stage (BCLC Class B or Okuda-Child Class II).…”

“…Two articles [18,38], which were written by the same author, failed to provide data related to patient affiliation with the same group, and therefore, were also considered as one study [18]. Finally, 16 studies [20,22,29,39], 3 prospective cohorts [21,40,41], 9 retrospective cohorts [16][17][18][19]23,30,[42][43][44]). The quality scores of the four RCTs assessed by JADAD scale are 4 [20,22,39] and 5 [29].…”

“…The quality scores of the four RCTs assessed by JADAD scale are 4 [20,22,39] and 5 [29]. The quality scores of the twelve cohort studies were assessed by Newcastle-Ottawa scale rang from 6 to 9 stars, in which three 6 [30,41,42], five are 7 [17,19,40,43,44], three are 8 [16,21,23] and one is 9 [18] stars.…”