The RELIVE consortium for relapsed or refractory pediatric hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma: a scoping review of the problem and a proposed solution

Abstract

Liver tumors account for approximately 2% of all pediatric malignancies. Children with advanced stages of hepatoblastoma (HB) are cured only 50-70% of the time while children with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have a <20% 5-year overall survival. This scoping review was performed to highlight the paucity of rigorous, reliable data guiding the management of relapsed pediatric HB or HCC. When these patients are enrolled on prospective trials, the trials are often histology-agnostic, exclude patients less than a year of age, lack a liquid formulary of the drug under study, exclude recipients of a solid organ transplant, and enroll only 1-2 patients limiting the ability to deduce efficacious regimens for current use or future study. We highlight the creation of a global pediatric consortium intended to source retrospective relapse data from over 100 institutions spanning 4 continents. The data collected from this effort will inform future relapse trials.

Keywords: Carcinoma; Hepatoblastoma; Pediatric; Registry; Relapse; Review.

Fig. 1

Geographic description of the network of institutions engaged in the RELIVE initiative (left) and primary objectives and goals embedded within the RELIVE registry(right).