A drug commonly used to treat kidney cancer has helped liver cancer patients live 44 per cent longer than patients given a placebo, a new study says.

Researchers from New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine gave 602 patients either a placebo or 400 mg of sorafenib, also known as Nexavar, twice a day.

They found that:

• Median overall survival was 10.7 months in the sorafenib group and 7.9 months in the placebo group.
• Median time it took for the cancer to grow was 5.5 months in the sorafenib group and 2.8 months in the placebo group.

"This is the first time that we've had an effective systemic treatment for liver cancer," Dr. Josep Llovet, the director of liver cancer research at Mount Sinai and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

According to the study, liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer related death worldwide, behind lung and stomach cancers.

If liver cancer is diagnosed at a late stage, survival rates are very low. Treatment for late-stage liver cancer can include surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy directed right into the liver.

However, a medication that could halt progress of the disease in its advanced stages does not yet exist.

About 40 per cent of liver cancer cases are diagnosed at a late stage.