Is there an opportunity for personalized medicine in HCC?

Commenting on an increasing tally of negative Phase 3 trials in advanced HCC, Professor Roberto Labianca from Riuniti Hospital, Bergamo, Italy, said “we’ve been conducting the same trials for 15 years – it’s time we started selecting our patient populations based on the molecular target profile of the agents being studied, as has been done so successfully in other areas, for example, with trastuzumab in HER2-positive breast cancer”. Suggestions that this may indeed be the way forward in HCC were strengthened at ESMO 2012 when Dr Bruno Daniele from Rummo Hospital, Benevento, Italy, presented final results from a randomized Phase 2 trial of the MET inhibitor, tivantinib (formerly known as ARQ 197), as 2nd-line therapy in unresectable HCC. Read more here.