Clinical and radiomic characteristics of transarterial chemoembolization combined with immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 1 Basic data of the patients, n (%)/mean ± SD

Variables	Combination group	TACE group	t/χ2	P value
Gender (male/female)	37 (47.44)/41 (52.56)	24 (57.14)/18 (42.86)	1.029	0.310
Mean age (years)	59.14 ± 8.06	57.93 ± 7.01	0.821	0.413
Duration of hepatitis B infection (year)	19.22 ± 2.41	17.01 ± 3.12	3.214	0.142
Tumor size (cm)	4.39 ± 2.50	3.99 ± 1.24	2.581	0.093
Tumor location (left lobe/right lobe/multifocal, %)	33.62/59.18/7.20%	32.12/59.18/8.70%	1.892	0.059

TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization.

Table 2 Comparison of efficacy between the two groups, n (%)

Group	Case	CR	PR	SD	PD	ORR	DCR
TACE group	60	0 (0.0)	14 (23.3)	22 (36.7)	24 (40.0)	14 (23.3)	36 (60.0)
Combination group	60	0 (0.0)	22 (36.7)	12 (20.0)	26 (43.3)	22 (36.7)	46 (76.7)
χ2	-	-	-	-	-	-	24.144
P value	-	-	-	-	-	-	0.001

TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization; CR: Compactness; PR: Perimeter-to-surface ratio; SD: Standard deviation; PD: Percent difference density; ORR: Objective response rate; DCR: Disease control rate.

Table 3 Comparison of serum tumor marker levels between the two groups, mean ± SD

Group	Case	AFU (U/L)	AFP (ng/mL)	CA19-9 (KU/L)
TACE group	Before treatment	60	282.4 ± 21.8	574.5 ± 50.9
	After treatment	60	238.7 ± 20.1	463.2 ± 25.1
Combination group	Before treatment	60	283.1 ± 22.0	573.8 ± 51.4
	After treatment	60	185.3 ± 19.2a	351.6 ± 22.0a

^aP < 0.05 vs the transarterial chemoembolization group after treatment.

TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization; AFU: Α-L-fucosidase; AFP: Alpha-fetoprotein; CA19-9: Carbohydrate antigen 19-9.

Table 4 Comparison of serum angiogenic factor levels between the two groups, mean ± SD

Group	Case	HGF (ng/mL)	VEGF (ng/L)	PDGF (ng/L)	bFGF (ng/L)
TACE group	Before treatment	60	144.2 ± 16.8	463.1 ± 54.7	2155.8 ± 350.5
	After treatment	60	95.3 ± 8.9	433.2 ± 41.8	1964.5 ± 314.2
Combination group	Before treatment	60	143.5 ± 15.9	462.3 ± 56.2	2156.5 ± 352.1
	After treatment	60	71.8 ± 7.8a	304.1 ± 36.1a	1508.2 ± 301.7a

^aP < 0.05 vs the transarterial chemoembolization group after treatment.

TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization; HGF: Hepatocyte growth factor; VEGF: Vascular endothelial growth factor; PDGF: Platelet-derived growth factor; bFGF: Basic fibroblast growth factor.

Table 5 Expression levels of serum apoptosis molecules before and after treatment in the two groups, mean ± SD

Group	Case	Caspase-3 (ng/mL)	Survivin (ng/mL)
TACE group	Before treatment	60	28.4 ± 4.5
	After treatment	60	37.5 ± 5.4
Combination group	Before treatment	60	28.0 ± 5.0
	After treatment	60	44.3 ± 5.7a

^aP < 0.05 vs the transarterial chemoembolization group after treatment.

TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization.

Table 6 Correlation analysis between radiomics features and clinical features

Clinical features	Radiomic features	Correlation coefficient (r)	P value
Tumor volume	GLCM contrast	-0.43	< 0.01
Tumor volume	DCE-MRI arterial phase entropy	0.48	< 0.01
Tumor location	GLRLM SRHGE	0.40	< 0.05
Tumor location	GLDM gray-level non-uniformity	0.45	< 0.01
Tumor number	Gray-level variance of texture features	0.52	< 0.01
Tumor number	GLRLM LRLGE	-0.46	< 0.01

GLCM: Gray-level co-occurrence matrix; DCE-MRI: Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging; SRHGE: Short-run high-gray-level emphasis; LRLGE: Long-run low-gray-level emphasis.