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Immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma: strategies for combinatorial intervention

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Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary liver cancer, leading to 74.6 thousand deaths annually. The prognosis of HCC over the last few decades has remained unsatisfactory, and over half of patients with early-stage HCC develop recurrence by the time of follow-up. Immunotherapeutic intervention has emerged as a novel, effective treatment to delay the progression of aggressive tumors and suppress tumor recurrence and metastasis. However, few clinical immunotherapy trials have been conducted in HCC patients, and there is an unmet need for novel therapeutic strategies. The combination of conventional treatments with specific immunotherapeutic approaches may dramatically improve the efficacy of HCC treatment and the clinical outcome of HCC patients. In this review, we briefly summarize immunotherapy strategies and discuss new advances in combined immunotherapeutic approaches for the treatment of patients with liver cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Liver Surgery & Transplantation Center, Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Mengxin Tian, Yinghong Shi, Weiren Liu & Jia Fan

  2. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Cancer Invasion of Ministry of Education, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Mengxin Tian, Yinghong Shi, Weiren Liu & Jia Fan

  3. Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Jia Fan

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  1. Mengxin Tian
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Correspondence to Jia Fan.

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Tian, M., Shi, Y., Liu, W. et al. Immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma: strategies for combinatorial intervention. Sci. China Life Sci. 62, 1138–1143 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-018-9446-2

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