Study of Sorafenib, Gemcitabine, and Cisplatin in Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

This study will look at the effectiveness and safety of combining gemcitabine, cisplatin and sorafenib for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with advanced disease who are chemo naive. Sorafenib has shown an increase in median survival but only tumor shrinkage by RECIST criteria. Since much of the morbidity and mortality of this disease occurs due to continued tumor growth in an already compromised liver, decreasing the size of the tumors might have significant impact on survival. The addition of traditional cytoxic agents might cause measureable tumor response and add to the survival benefit already seen with sorafenib. Gemcitabine and cisplatin are agents commonly used for systemic treatment of this disease and have demonstrated some effectiveness in disease control rate and median time to progression. Gemcitabine/Cisplatin have been used safely in combination with sorafenib in patients with lung cancer.