Bo XW, Sun LP, Yu SY, Xu HX. Thermal ablation and immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma: Recent advances and future directions. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2021; 13(10): 1397-1411 [PMID: 34721773 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i10.1397]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hui-Xiong Xu, MD, PhD, Center of Minimally Invasive Treatment for Tumor, Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, Ultrasound Research and Education Institute, Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment, National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, No. 301 Yanchangzhong Road, Shanghai 200072, China. xuhuixiong@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
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/
Xiao-Wan Bo, Li-Ping Sun, Song-Yuan Yu, Hui-Xiong Xu, Center of Minimally Invasive Treatment for Tumor, Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital; Ultrasound Research and Education Institute, Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200072, China
Xiao-Wan Bo, Li-Ping Sun, Song-Yuan Yu, Hui-Xiong Xu, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment; National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, Shanghai 200072, China
Author contributions: Bo XW and Xu HX designed the paper; all authors modified the paper.
Supported bythe National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81801802 and 81725008; Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, No. 2019LJ21 and No. SHSLCZDZK03502; the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, No. 19DZ2251100, No. 19441903200, and No. 18441905500; and Shanghai “Rising Stars of Medical Talent” Youth Development Program.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
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: Hui-Xiong Xu, MD, PhD, Center of Minimally Invasive Treatment for Tumor, Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, Ultrasound Research and Education Institute, Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment, National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, No. 301 Yanchangzhong Road, Shanghai 200072, China. xuhuixiong@126.com
Received: March 1, 2021 Peer-review started: March 1, 2021 First decision: June 16, 2021 Revised: April 20, 2021 Accepted: August 3, 2021 Article in press: August 3, 2021 Published online: October 15, 2021 Processing time: 226 Days and 1.2 Hours
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of most common cancers that cause death in the world. Thermal ablation (TA) is an important alternative treatment method for HCC patients who are not appropriate for surgery or liver transplantation. Particularly for small and early HCCs, TA can be considered as the first-line curative treatment. However, local and distant recurrence rates are still high even though the TA equipment and technology develop rapidly. Immunotherapy is a novel systemic treatment method to enhance the anti-tumor immune response of HCC patients, which has the potential to reduce the tumor recurrence and metastasis. The combination of local TA and systemic immunotherapy for HCCs may be an ideal treatment for enhancing the efficacy of TA and controlling the recurrence. Herein we summarize the latest progress in TA, immunotherapy, and their combination for the treatment of patients with HCC and discuss the limitations and future research directions of the combined therapy.
Core Tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most leading causes of death in the world. Thermal ablation (TA) is an important treatment method for HCC patients. The main disadvantage of TA for HCC is the high local and distant recurrence rates after treatment. Immunotherapy is a novel systemic treatment that presents potential efficacy to inhibit the tumor recurrence. The combination of local TA and immunotherapy for HCC may be an ideal treatment for enhancing the efficacy of TA and controlling the recurrence. We herein summarize the latest progress in TA, immunotherapy, and the combination of TA with immunotherapy for HCC and discuss the future directions of the combined therapy.
