Dr. Llovet Discusses Second-Line Ramucirumab in Advanced HCC

Josep M. Llovet, MD, PhD, founder and director of the Liver Cancer Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and professor at the University of Barcelona, discusses the results from the phase III REACH-2 study of ramucirumab (Cyramza) as a second-line treatment of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Data showed that ramucirumab was significantly better than placebo in terms of overall survival at 8.2 months versus 7 months, respectively.

Llovet also discussed the results of a meta-analysis, which evaluated patients with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels greater than 400 from both the REACH and REACH-2 trials. There were slightly better outcomes in this patient population where the 5-month median survival improved to 8 months, Llovet says. This is a key takeaway from this trial, he concluded.

REACH-2 is a follow-up to the phase III REACH trial. In June 2014, Eli Lilly Oncology, the developer of ramucirumab, reported that in the REACH study, second-line treatment with ramucirumab did not improve OS compared with placebo in the full population of patients with advanced HCC.

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