The effect of lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio on efficacy of sorafenib for recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma after curative resection.

Abstract

367 Background: Sorafenib, an oral multikinase inhibitor, is approved for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treatment. Predictive biomarkers of sorafenib are needed due to its frequent adverse effect. Lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR) has been reported as a prognostic or predictive biomarker of chemotherapy in cancer. However, clinical significance of LMR are unclear as predictive biomarker of sorafenib. To investigate the efficacy prediction value of LMR in patients who received sorafenib for recurrent HCC after curative resection. Methods: Clinicopathological data of 59 patients who received sorafenib for recurrent HCC after surgical treatment between 2009 and 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. Sorafenib was administered at a dose of 400mg or 800mg. Survival outcomes were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the predictive impact of LMR and other clinicopathological factors for efficacy of sorafenib on overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS). Results: The optimal cutoff value of LMR for response evaluation was 3.1, which resulted in the most appropriate sensitivity of 60.5% and specificity of 71.4%, with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.641 (95% C.I.: 0.515-0.806). All patients were divided into either a low ( < 3.1) LMR (LLMR) group (n = 27), or a high ( > 3.1) LMR (HLMR) group (n = 32). Patients with HLMR group had significantly increased OS (MST: 20.0M vs 8.0M, P = 0.001) and PFS (MST: 10.2M vs 5.1M, P < 0.001) compared to those with a LLMR group. Multivariate analyses indicated that a HLMR was a significantly independent predictor of superior OS (P = 0.006) and PFS (P < 0.001). Conclusions: LMR in pre-administration of sorafenib was demonstrated to serve as an independent efficacy prediction factor of sorafenib in recurrent HCC patients after curative resection.