Purpose: Programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibitor sintilimab plus bevacizumab has been approved as the first-line treatment for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC). However, the clinical benefits of sintilimab plus bevacizumab in a real-world setting in China is insufficiently defined to date. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of sintilimab plus bevacizumab biosimilar in a real-word cohort of patients with aHCC from China.
Methods: We reviewed the clinical data of 112 consecutive patients with aHCC who received sintilimab plus bevacizumab as a first-line treatment in Chongqing University Cancer hospital between July, 2021 and December, 2022. Overall survival, progression-free survival, overall response rate, and adverse event rates were assessed based on the RECIST 1.1. The survival curves were grafted by Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: Sixty-eight patients with aHCC were included our study. Efficacy evaluation results showed that 8 patients were partial remission, 51 patients were stable and 9 patients showed progression disease. Median overall survival and progression-free survival were 344.00 (168.77-419.23) days and 238.00 (174.56-301.44) days, respectively. Adverse events occurred in 35 patients (51.5%), including 9 patients with grade ≥ 3. The life-year (LY) and quality-adjusted LY (QALY) were 1.97 and 2.92, respectively, with a cost of $35,018.
Conclusion: Our data confirmed the promising efficacy, tolerable toxicity and cost-effectiveness in Chinese patients with aHCC who received sintilimab plus bevacizumab as the first-line therapy regimen in real-world practice.
Keywords: Bevacizumab biosimilar; Cost-effectiveness; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Sintilimab; Survival.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.