Researchers at the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York have completed a phase 3 trial on the effectiveness of a drug on advanced liver cancer.

As the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the world, liver cancer is one of the most difficult variations to fight once it has reached its advanced stages. With advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), there are currently no treatments to improve the average survival rate of 7.8 months after diagnosis. The study, published in The Lancet, tests the effectiveness of the drug regorafenib on patients with HCC who had been treated with sorafenib, the only other drug giving effective treatments to patients, but their cancer still advanced.

The study spanned 152 sites in 21 countries and included 573 patients, of which 194 patients were given placebo. Results showed that patients who received regorafenib improved their survival rates significantly from 7.8 months to 10.6 months. Additionally, two patients taking regorafenib had their tumors shrink to an undetectable level.

"This study represents a breakthrough in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma, since it provides evidence for clinical benefits in an area that was an unmet medical need," said Josep M. Llovet, MD, founder and Director of the Liver Cancer Program and Professor of Medicine and Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "Regorafenib has shown it can improve survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma progressing on sorafenib."