Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Nov 18, 2022; 12(11): 331-346
Published online Nov 18, 2022. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v12.i11.331
Role of immunotherapy in downsizing hepatocellular carcinoma prior to liver transplantation
Konstantinos Ouranos, Anthi Chatziioannou, Ioannis Goulis, Emmanouil Sinakos
Konstantinos Ouranos, Anthi Chatziioannou, Ioannis Goulis, Emmanouil Sinakos, 4th Medical Department, Hippokratio Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54642, Greece
Author contributions: Ouranos K drafted the article; Chatziioannou A contributed to the acquisition of analyses of data; Goulis I made critical revisions related to important intellectual content and approved the final version of the manuscript; Sinakos E designed the study, made critical revisions related to important intellectual content, approved the final version of the manuscript and supervised the project.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict -of-interest to disclose relevant to this work.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Konstantinos Ouranos, MD, 4th Medical Department, Hippokratio Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 49, Konstantinoupoleos Str, Thessaloniki 54642, Greece. kostassky@hotmail.com
Received: June 15, 2022
Peer-review started: June 15, 2022
First decision: August 1, 2022
Revised: August 10, 2022
Accepted: October 19, 2022
Article in press: October 19, 2022
Published online: November 18, 2022
Processing time: 154 Days and 9.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Immunotherapy has been used in the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with promising results. Extending its use in the preoperative period prior to liver transplantation (LT), either alone or in combination with other locoregional treatment modalities, could increase the pool of potential LT candidates. Data from case reports and ongoing clinical trials assessing neoadjuvant immunotherapy prior to LT could revolutionize the current consensus regarding HCC downsizing practices and improve survival of patients with this type of malignancy.