Trotovšek B, Djokić M, Čemažar M, Serša G. New era of electrochemotherapy in treatment of liver tumors in conjunction with immunotherapies. World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(48): 8216-8226 [PMID: 35068866 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i48.8216]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Blaž Trotovšek, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Abdominal Surgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Zaloska cesta 7, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia. blaz.trotovsek@kclj.si
Research Domain of This Article
Surgery
Article-Type of This Article
Frontier
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 28, 2021; 27(48): 8216-8226 Published online Dec 28, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i48.8216
New era of electrochemotherapy in treatment of liver tumors in conjunction with immunotherapies
Blaž Trotovšek, Mihajlo Djokić, Maja Čemažar, Gregor Serša
Blaž Trotovšek, Mihajlo Djokić, Department of Abdominal Surgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Blaž Trotovšek, Mihajlo Djokić, Medical Faculty Ljubljana, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Maja Čemažar, Gregor Serša, Department of Experimental Oncology, Institute of Oncology, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Maja Čemažar, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Primorska, Izola 6310, Slovenia
Gregor Serša, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Author contributions: Trotovšek B and Serša G were equally involved in the conceptualization and writing of the manuscript; Djokić M helped write and edit the manuscript; Čemažar M edited the manuscript; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript, met the criteria for authorship established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and verified the validity of the reported results.
Supported bythe Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) (P3-0003). The investment was co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Regional Development Fund (Project SmartGene.Si).
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no conflict-of-interest to declare. Editing services provided by American Journal Experts was financed through the funding of Slovenian Research Agency - grant P3-0003.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Blaž Trotovšek, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Abdominal Surgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Zaloska cesta 7, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia. blaz.trotovsek@kclj.si
Received: March 26, 2021 Peer-review started: March 26, 2021 First decision: October 16, 2021 Revised: October 28, 2021 Accepted: December 16, 2021 Article in press: December 16, 2021 Published online: December 28, 2021
Core Tip
Core Tip: Electrochemotherapy was found to be feasible, safe and highly effective for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A local immune response is induced through the destruction of tumor cells; therefore, the electrochemotherapy approach can be considered an in situ vaccination. Electrochemotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors had an interactive effect on melanoma tumors and HCC. Furthermore, electrochemotherapy can be combined with immunostimulation with cytokines. Electrochemotherapy involving the gene electrotransfer of a plasmid DNA coding for interleukin-12 (IL-12) has already been shown to have clinical value. The combination of electrochemotherapy and immunogene therapy with IL-12 via electroporation might be a feasible new treatment strategy for HCC that is also potentially applicable to other liver tumors.
