Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center liver cancer experts co-authored a new treatment framework for hepatocellular carcinoma called BEACON-HCC, published Aug. 7 in the journal Hepatology. The framework was developed with 16 other cancer centers under HCC-LIVE, a consortium of North American hepatocellular carcinoma experts.
BEACON-HCC lays out stage-specific treatment recommendations based on tumor burden, vascular invasion and tumor biology, and it incorporates newer options such as external beam radiation therapy, transarterial radioembolization and combination systemic therapies. It is designed to replace reliance on the nearly 30-year-old Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer staging system, said co-author Mark Yarchoan, MD, an associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The 20 co-authors validated the framework using 29 de-identified patient cases, comparing treatment recommendations from BEACON-HCC and the BCLC 2025 system against choices made by 18 outside hepatocellular carcinoma specialists. The outside experts’ decisions matched BEACON-HCC recommendations 96.6% of the time, compared with 72.4% agreement with BCLC.
“HCC management is a complex multidisciplinary effort due to disease biology and the variety of treatment options,” said co-author Jeffrey Meyer, MD, an associate professor of radiation oncology and molecular radiation sciences at Johns Hopkins.
Co-authors also came from UT Southwestern Medical Center, UCLA, the University of Toronto, USC, NYU Langone Health, Mayo Clinic, UCSF, the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Hospital Universitario Vall d’Hebron, University Health Network and Mount Sinai Medical Center. Hepatocellular carcinoma is the third-leading cause of cancer death worldwide, and five-year survival remains below 25%.
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