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Does volume change of the spleen correlate with the therapy response in uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases undergoing hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy? Cover

Does volume change of the spleen correlate with the therapy response in uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases undergoing hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy?

Open Access
|Sep 2025

Figures & Tables

FIGURE 1.

Flowchart of analyzed study population with exclusion criteria.
HAIC = hepatic artery infusion therapy
Flowchart of analyzed study population with exclusion criteria. HAIC = hepatic artery infusion therapy

FIGURE 2.

71-year old women with uveal melanoma and liver metastases. Axial CT image examples of volumetry of liver and spleen four days before and 44 days after first hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC). Liver and spleen volume increased by 39% after first HAIC.
71-year old women with uveal melanoma and liver metastases. Axial CT image examples of volumetry of liver and spleen four days before and 44 days after first hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC). Liver and spleen volume increased by 39% after first HAIC.

FIGURE 3.

Change in spleen volume dif ferentiated by treatment response according to RECIST 1.1. Points show outliers outside the Tukey whiskers. Asterisks indicate significant differences (p ≤ 0.05).
Change in spleen volume dif ferentiated by treatment response according to RECIST 1.1. Points show outliers outside the Tukey whiskers. Asterisks indicate significant differences (p ≤ 0.05).

FIGURE 4.

Kaplan-Meier curve shows overall survival (OS) in uveal melanoma (UM) patients with and without splenomegaly before first hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC).
Kaplan-Meier curve shows overall survival (OS) in uveal melanoma (UM) patients with and without splenomegaly before first hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC).

FIGURE 5.

Overall survival of evaluation of treatment response by RECIST 1.1 (A) and spleen volumetry with a threshold of 5% (B) of spleen volume increase of uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases treated by hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC). Kaplan-Meier curves show overall survival (OS) separately for patients evaluated as stable disease (SD) + partial response (PR) and (progressive disease) PD. In spleen volumetry, patients with an increase in spleen volume more than 5% were classified as increased spleen volume and with decrease or increase up to 5% as stable spleen volume.
Overall survival of evaluation of treatment response by RECIST 1.1 (A) and spleen volumetry with a threshold of 5% (B) of spleen volume increase of uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases treated by hepatic artery infusion therapy (HAIC). Kaplan-Meier curves show overall survival (OS) separately for patients evaluated as stable disease (SD) + partial response (PR) and (progressive disease) PD. In spleen volumetry, patients with an increase in spleen volume more than 5% were classified as increased spleen volume and with decrease or increase up to 5% as stable spleen volume.

FIGURE 6.

Kaplan-Meier curves for the combined RECIST 1.1 and spleen volumetry evaluation of treatment response with a threshold of 5% increase in spleen volume in uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases treated by HAIC.
PD = progressive disease; PR = partial response; SD = stable disease
Kaplan-Meier curves for the combined RECIST 1.1 and spleen volumetry evaluation of treatment response with a threshold of 5% increase in spleen volume in uveal melanoma patients with liver metastases treated by HAIC. PD = progressive disease; PR = partial response; SD = stable disease

Median overall survival and accordance of treatment response evaluation by RECIST 1_1 and spleen volumetry with a threshold of 5% increase in spleen volume

Spleen volumetry
RECIST 1.1 criteriaStable (spleen volume decrease or increase up to max. 5%)Increase (spleen volume increases more than 5%)Total
SD + PR15.8 months (n = 85)13.8 months (n = 64)15.1 months (n = 149)
PD9.5 months (n = 12)8.5 months (n = 18)8.3 months (n = 30)
Total15.1 months (n = 97)11.5 months (n = 82)13.8 months (n = 179)

Patient characteristics

All patients (n = 179)Splenomegaly (n = 25)No Splenomegaly (n = 154)p-value
Age (mean/SD)64.8 years, 11.0 years61.9 years, 12.5 years65.0 years, 10.7 years0.2
Gender (female/male)95 (53 %) / 84 (47 %)4 (16 %) / 21 (84 %)91 (59 %) / 63 (41 %)
Number of HAIC per patient5 (3–10)5 (3–11)5 (3–9)0.8
Spleen
  Volume before first HAIC205 ml (150–263 ml)362 ml (347–407 ml)186 ml (142–237 ml)< 0.0001
  Volume after first HAIC213 ml (155–279 ml)385 ml (345–430 ml)200 ml (151–241 ml)< 0.0001
  Volume change+4.0 % (-4.0 – +12.0%)+ 6.5 % (-5.8 – +11.5%)+3.6 % (-3.4 – +12.2%)0.8
Liver
  Volume before first HAIC1731 ml (1426–2228 ml)2358 ml (1936–2787 ml)1637 ml (1405–2050 ml)< 0.0001
  Volume after first HAIC1780 ml (1447–2406 ml)2354 (1983–2894 ml)1741 ml (1431–2240 ml)0.0009
  Volume change+4.0 % (-2.0 – +13.0%)-0.5 % (-9.4 – +6.9%)+5.0 % (-1.7 – +13.4%)0.04
RECIST 1.1 liver index size change+2.8 % (-6.5 – +14.3%)+2.5 % (-3.0 – +10.2%)+3.3 % (-7.2 – +16.1%)0.7
Overall survival13.7 months (7.3–21.2 months)10.7 months (5.2–19.2 months)13.8 months (7.3–21.8 months)0.6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2025-0047 | Journal eISSN: 1581-3207 | Journal ISSN: 1318-2099
Language: English
Page range: 383 - 390
Submitted on: Mar 3, 2025
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Accepted on: May 22, 2025
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Published on: Sep 5, 2025
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2025 Hannah Luisa Steinberg-Vorhoff, Marcel Drews, Marcel Opitz, Natalie van Landeghem, Luca Salhöfer, Mathias Holtkamp, Yan Li, Johannes Haubold, Jens Siveke, Heike Richly, Michael Forsting, Benedikt Michael Schaarschmidt, Sebastian Zensen, published by Association of Radiology and Oncology
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.