Rapamycin in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma progressing on prior antiangiogenic therapy.

Abstract

356 Background: PI3K/Akt/mTOR is a critical survival pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) often correlated with poor prognosis. Rapamycin (sirolimus) and its analogue everolimus, are specific mTOR inhibitors that showed promising antitumor activity in preclinical models and clinical cases of HCC Aims: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of rapamycin in patients (pts) with advanced HCC after failure or intolerance to prior antiangiogenic therapy Methods: In this retrospective cohort, we analyzed consecutive patients with progressive HCC after 1 to 3 lines of treatment including at least sorafenib. All pts received oral rapamycin at 20 to 30 mg once a week. Adverse events (AEs) were assessed using NCI-CTCAE v3.0, and tumor response was evaluated according to RECIST criteria. Results: Nine patients (F/M: 1/8) with compensated liver cirrhosis (Child A, n = 6; Child B7, n = 2) or no cirrhosis (n=1) and histologically proven HCC were included in this study. Overall, therapy with rapamycin was well tolerated. Most common toxicities were asthenia (grade 1-2: 5 pts) anaemia (all grade: 5 pts; grade 3: 2 pts ) and thrombocytopenia (grade 1-2: 2 pts). Liver function deterioration was observed in 2 pts with advanced cirrhosis (Child B7). Radiological evaluation was available in 6 pts. No objective tumor response was observed however stable disease ≥ 3 months was observed in 4 cases. Moreover, 2 pts showed stable disease at 6 months. Prolonged stabilization under rapamycin was observed in pts who were previously controlled at least for 6 months with sorafenib. Rapamycin was discontinued due to disease progression in 7/8 pts, toxicity in 1/8 pts. One pt shows ongoing long-lasting disease stabilization (8 + months). Conclusions: Rapamycin displayed an acceptable safety profile and may achieved disease stabilization in patients with heavily pretreated advanced HCC.