Dr Gao-Jun Teng unveils the results on ASCO. Photo: courtesy of Hengrui Pharma

Results of CHANCE 2005/CARES-005 study were unveiled by Dr Gao-Jun Teng from Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University, China, during the Late-Breaking Abstract session of the 2025 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California.

TACE has been established as the standard treatment for intermediate HCC, but the long-term survival is limited. Although immunotherapy-based treatments have led to success in advanced HCC, the proportion of patients who respond to immunotherapy remains modest. There remains an unmet need for improved survival benefits. Combining TACE with immunotherapy-based treatment can potentially enhance antitumor activity by activating the immune system, and therefore converting "cold tumor" to "hot tumor" responding to immunotherapy. This synergistic effect has been preliminarily demonstrated through EMERALD-1、LEAP-012 trials and real-world studies,MKsport including the CHANCE 001 study and CHANCE 2201 study. Results from CHANCE studies indicated that TACE combination systemic therapy has great superiority over TACE alone, as indicated by all-around improvements in median PFS, OS, and ORR.

The CHANCE 2005/CARES-005 study was a multicenter, open-label, randomized, and controlled phase 2 study designed to compare the efficacy and safety of TACE in combination with camrelizumab plus rivoceranib versus TACE alone, especially in patients with unresectable HCC. Camrelizumab and rivoceranib, which were chosen to be combined with TACE, were approved as standard first-line treatment for unresectable HCC in CARES-310 study. The final results of the CARES-310 study, with the median OS of 23.8 months and the reduction in mortality risk of 36%, were updated at ASCO 2024. There was a statistically significant and clinical meaningful improvement in PFS in the group of TACE plus camrelizumab and rivoceranib compared with TACE alone (10.8 months versus 3.2 months). Despite the limited OS events, the trend toward better OS benefit was observed with TACE combined camrelizumab and rivoceranib. The safety profile for the combination of TACE+camrelizumab+rivoceranib was manageable and consistent with the known adverse event profiles of TACE, camrelizumab, and rivoceranib in unresectable HCC.