Research in Brief

Abstract

Section snippets

Cabozantinib for advanced neuroendocrine tumours

Cabozantinib shows promise for patients with neuroendocrine tumours, according to the CABINET phase 3 trial. Jennifer A Chan and colleagues randomly assigned patients with previously treated, progressive advanced extrapancreatic or pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours to receive either cabozantinib 60 mg or placebo daily. Among patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours, a significant improvement in progression-free survival was observed in the cabozantinib group compared with the placebo

Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for gastric cancer

Preoperative chemoradiotherapy did not improve outcomes for patients with resectable gastric cancer in the TOPGEAR phase 3 trial. Trevor Leong and colleagues randomly assigned patients with resectable adenocarcinoma of the stomach or gastro-oesophageal junction to receive either preoperative chemoradiotherapy plus perioperative chemotherapy (n=286) or perioperative chemotherapy alone (standard of care; n=288). 36 (17%) of 214 patients in the preoperative chemoradiotherapy group had a

Peg-interferon after bepirovirsen for chronic hepatitis B

Sequential therapy with pegylated interferon-alfa-2b after bepirovirsen might reduce relapse rates seen in earlier trials of bepirovirsen alone in patients with chronic hepatitis B, according to the B-Together trial. Maria Buti and colleagues randomly assigned patients on stable nucleoside or nucleotide analogue therapy to receive bepirovirsen 300 mg once weekly for 24 weeks (n=55) or 12 weeks (n=53), followed by pegylated interferon-alfa-2b 180 μg once weekly for up to 24 weeks, with up to 36

Terlipressin in decompensated cirrhosis

Long-term terlipressin therapy might improve cardiac reserve in patients with decompensated cirrhosis, according to new research. Ryma Terbah and colleagues enrolled 22 patients to receive home continuous terlipressin infusion for 12 weeks. The increase in cardiac output in response to low-dose dobutamine was significantly higher following terlipressin (4·0 L/min [57·8% increase]) as compared with baseline (1·8 L/min [21·3% increase]; p=0·0001). The proportion of patients with impaired cardiac

GALAD score for hepatocellular carcinoma surveillance

The GALAD score might be better than α-fetoprotein as a biomarker for the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma, according to a phase 3 biomarker validation study. Tracey L Marsh and colleagues enrolled 1588 patients with cirrhosis and followed them up for a median of 2·2 years. Patients underwent surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma every 6 months and diagnoses were confirmed according to AASLD guidelines. The performance of GALAD versus α-fetoprotein was retrospectively evaluated within