"An international phase  trial has found that the drug regorafenib improved survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma HCC a form of liver cancer giving people who previously had no other options a better chance at survival. Results from the study which included researchers at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai were recently published online in The Lancet http The trial funded by Bayer included  sites in  countries. About  percent of HCC cases are diagnosed at advanced stages a point when HCC is particularly difficult to treat. This trial provides evidence that regorafenib is the first systemic treatment for patients whose HCC progressed during treatment with sorafenib the only other drug with proven clinical benefit.  This study tested regorafenibs effectiveness as a secondline therapy on  patients previously treated with sorafenib  of whom were given a placebo. Regorafenib a multikinase inhibitor significantly improved overall survival from . months on placebo to . months with regorafenib. Two patients treated with regorafenib had their tumor shrink to an undetectable level according to the study.  This study represents a breakthrough in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma since it provides evidence for clinical benefits in an area that was an unmet medical need said Josep M. Llovet MD founder and Director of the Liver Cancer Program and Professor of Medicine and Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Regorafenib has shown it can improve survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma progressing on sorafenib. Previously no treatment was available for these patients. Dr. Llovet was a member of the clinical trials steering committee and Charissa Chang MD Assistant Professor of Medicine and Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine was principal investigator of the Mount Sinai testing site. The success of this trial opens the field for testing drugs in thirdline treatment of HCC and provides a rationale to test regorafenib as a firstline treatment or in combination with therapies administered directly into the tumor or diseased liver in patients in an earlier stage of HCC according to Dr. Llovet. In this trial regorafenib was welltolerated with manageable adverse events according to the paper in Lancet. In January Bayer announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration FDA had granted priority review status for Stivarga regorafenib as a secondline systemic treatment for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. This research was also presented during the European Society of Medical Oncologys World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in June. Liver cancer is the secondleading primary cause of cancerrelated deaths worldwide."