Preprint Review Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Emerging Role of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Vito Longo
,
Oronzo Brunetti
ORCID logo ,
Antonio Gnoni
,
Antonella Licchetta
,
Sabina Del Curatolo
,
Riccardo Memeo
,
Antonio Giovanni Solimando
ORCID logo ,
Antonella Argentiero
*
Version 1 : Received: 12 September 2019 / Approved: 14 September 2019 / Online: 14 September 2019 (18:37:29 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Longo, V.; Brunetti, O.; Gnoni, A.; Licchetta, A.; Delcuratolo, S.; Memeo, R.; Solimando, A.G.; Argentiero, A. Emerging role of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Medicina 2019, 55, 698. Longo, V.; Brunetti, O.; Gnoni, A.; Licchetta, A.; Delcuratolo, S.; Memeo, R.; Solimando, A.G.; Argentiero, A. Emerging role of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Medicina 2019, 55, 698.

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common primary liver cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. A total of 70-80% of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage with a dismal prognosis. Sorafenib has been the standard of care for almost a decade until 2018 when FDA approved an alternative first-line agent namely lenvatinib. Whereas FOLFOX4 results an alternative first-line treatment for the chinese clinical oncology guidelines. In addition to cabozantinib, regorafenib, and ramucirumab, two therapeutics against the PD-L1/PD1 axis have been recently approved for subsequent-line therapy, as nivolumab and pembrolizumab. However, similar to other solid tumors, the response rate of single-agent targeting PD-L1/PD1 axis is low. Therefore a lot of combinatory approaches are under investigation, including the combination of different immune checkpoint inhibitors, the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors after resection or during locoregional therapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors in addition to kinase inhibitors, anti-angiogenic therapeutics, and others. This review focuses on the use of ICIs for the hepatocellular carcinoma with an attent evaluation of new ICIs based combinatory approaches.

Keywords

hepatocellular carcinoma; immune checkpoint inhibitors; HCC; pembrolizumab; nivolumab; immune microenvironment; targeted therapies

Subject

Medicine and Pharmacology, Oncology and Oncogenics

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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