Treatment Patterns and Health Resource Utilization in Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Failure of Sorafenib in Real-World Setting in Taiwan

•The novelty of this study is an up-to-date overview of current treatment patterns and health resource utilization in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the real-world setting in Taiwan. Findings showed that nivolumab monotherapy was used by nearly half of patients in both second- and third-line therapies after first-line sorafenib therapy, despite Asian and European guidelines not currently recommending nivolumab. Chemotherapy was used by approximately a quarter of patients, which the Taiwanese guidelines indicated would be useful for some patients.•Healthcare resource utilization data indicated high utilization of oncologist and hepatologist visits and high rate and duration of hospitalization among all patients and particularly in the high–alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) group. These results can inform future evaluations of new HCC treatments that estimate the health economic impact of their adoption in Taiwan.•This study also quantified the rapidly progressing nature of HCC in terms of increase in AFP level from the time of HCC diagnosis and after sorafenib treatment, in the overall patient group and particularly in the high-AFP group. This real-world evidence research highlighted continuing high mortality in HCC, underlying a need for new treatments that can lengthen survival.