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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 8, 2015; 7(10): 1412-1420
Published online Jun 8, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i10.1412
Current systemic treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma: A review of the literature
Kai-Wen Chen, Tzu-Ming Ou, Chin-Wen Hsu, Chi-Ting Horng, Ching-Chang Lee, Yuh-Yuan Tsai, Chi-Chang Tsai, Yi-Sheng Liou, Chen-Chieh Yang, Chao-Wen Hsueh, Wu-Hsien Kuo
Kai-Wen Chen, Department of Internal Medicine, Hualien Armed Forces General Hospital, Hualien 97144, Taiwan
Kai-Wen Chen, Tzu-Ming Ou, Wu-Hsien Kuo, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei 11464, Taiwan
Tzu-Ming Ou, Ching-Chang Lee, Yuh-Yuan Tsai, Chi-Chang Tsai, Chao-Wen Hsueh, Wu-Hsien Kuo, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital, Kaohsiung 80284, Taiwan
Chin-Wen Hsu, Chi-Ting Horng, Department of Medicine, Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital, Kaohsiung 80284, Taiwan
Yi-Sheng Liou, Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung 40705, Taiwan
Yi-Sheng Liou, Department of Public Health, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei 11490, Taiwan
Chen-Chieh Yang, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mennonite Christian Hospital, Hualien 97059, Taiwan
Author contributions: Kuo WH designed the research; Chen KW, Ou TM and Kuo WH performed the research; Hsu CW, Horng CT, Lee CC, Tsai YY, Tsai CC, Liou YS, Yang CC, Hsueh CW and Kuo WH analyzed the data; Chen KW, Ou TM and Kuo WH wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: 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/
Correspondence to: Wu-Hsien Kuo, MD, PhD, Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital, No.2, Zhongzheng 1st Rd., Lingya District, Kaohsiung 80284, Taiwan. wuhsienku@gmail.com
Telephone: +886-7-7495986 Fax: +886-7-7491056
Received: August 26, 2014
Peer-review started: August 27, 2014
First decision: September 28, 2014
Revised: November 29, 2014
Accepted: March 30, 2015
Article in press: April 2, 2015
Published online: June 8, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Sorafenib is a multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor that was the first systemic therapy in the world to improve the survival rate of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a phase III trial. However, the overall outcomes are sometimes unsatisfactory and there is a need for second line therapies in patients with advanced HCC who still progress after the use of sorafenib. Novel systemic approaches are needed in advanced HCC.