Molecular predictors of response to first-line systemic therapies in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Abstract

534 Background: With numerous advances in systemic therapy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) over the past several years, there are now multiple first-line treatment options which can be considered. These options include combination atezolizumab with bevacizumab (atezo/bev), programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) targeted agents, and oral multikinase inhibitor monotherapy. However, further guidance is needed to predict which patients will respond to best to each regimen. Methods: We performed a single center, retrospective study to determine the association between responses to first-line therapies in advanced HCC and various molecular alterations. Patients received first-line therapy with either atezo/bev, PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy, or oral multikinase inhibitor monotherapy with treatment responses determined by imaging. All patients underwent next-generation sequencing (NGS) with testing performed on peripheral blood or tumor tissue. Results: A total of 116 patients with advanced HCC were included in this study. For first-line therapies, 45 (38.8%) patients received atezo/bev, 41 (35.3%) received oral multikinase inhibitor monotherapy, and 30 (25.9%) received PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy. There was no association between treatment responses and patient ethnicity, age, or underlying cirrhosis etiology for any regimen. However, when analyzing NGS results, atezo/bev recipients with telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter alterations had significantly higher rates of disease progression (PD) compared those without TERT promoter alterations (91.7% vs 54.6%, p = 0.03). In addition, in the oral multikinase inhibitor monotherapy group, those with CTNNB1 alterations had significantly greater PD rates compared to patients without these alterations (66.7% vs 31%, p = 0.04). There were no significant correlations between molecular alterations and responses in the PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy group (Table). Conclusions: In our study, advanced HCC patients who received first-line systemic therapies were found to have significant correlations between TERT promoter and CTNNB1 alterations and responses to atezo/bev and oral multikinase inhibitor monotherapy, respectively. Given the widespread use of these regimens in the HCC treatment paradigm, additional studies are needed to confirm these findings and determine their impact on survival outcomes.[Table: see text]