Arndt Vogel, MD, PhD, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, discusses the Phase III HIMALAYA trial which investigated the combination treatment of durvalumab plus tremelimumab for patients with advanced, unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. 1171 patients, who had not received any prior systemic therapy, were randomised to receive either tremelimumab plus durvalumab, durvalumab alone, or sorafenib (the current standard of care) alone. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS). Both the tremelimumab plus durvalumab and the durvalumab alone arms reported a survival benefit over the sorafenib arm. Prof. Vogel explains the results presented at ESMO WCGIC on the effect of a patient’s underlying liver function on the overall outcome of this treatment. The analyses concluded that patients with impaired liver function had a shorter survival time than those with better liver function. However, the results showed that underlying liver function did not have a significant impact on the efficacy of either the combination treatment or durvalumab alone. Prof. Vogel emphasises that this data was gained through post-hoc analyses and that these results need to be further investigated in real-world studies to confirm the conclusions. This interview took place at the European Society for Medical Oncology World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer (ESMO WCGIC) 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.
