Johns Hopkins MedicineDrug Combination Gets Advanced Liver Cancer Patients to Surgery

Research from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center showed that combination therapy of cabozantinib and nivolumab could make curative surgery possible for some liver cancer patients who would normally not be considered for such a procedure. Among 15 people with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the study who could not be treated previously with surgery, the drugs allowed 12 patients to undergo successful surgical removal of their cancer. Five of these 12 patients had only 10% or less of their tumor remaining after the drug treatment.