Atezolizumab Plus Bevacizumab in Advanced HCC: Efficacy in NASH-Specific Etiology

Our studies reporting the survival impact of immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)1,2 have generated an important debate in the liver cancer field. This is critical given the growing global pandemic of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and the increase in HCC cases related to NASH etiology.3 A recently published Research Letter by Espinoza et al4 in Gastroenterology provides results of the Imbrave 150 for 100 patients with nonviral etiology allocated to the atezolizumab plus bevacizumab arm, readjudicating them to alcohol etiology (n = 51), NASH etiology (n = 47), or unknown (n = 3).