A Novel Immunotherapy PD-1 Antiboty to Suppress Recurrence of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Combined With Portal Vein Thrombus After Hepatic Resection

Hepatic resection is the most effective curative treatment for resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), whereas frequent recurrence usually impaired the efficacy of hepatic resection and contributed poor survivals. Portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) has been certified as an independent risk of early recurrence (≤2years after hepatic resection).

Although Transarterial Chemoembolization (TACE) has been used as an effective local adjuvant treatment to decrease the intraheptic recurrence. However, the intraheptic recurrence rate remains high and meanwhile it is uncapable to suppress extrahepatic recurrence. In addition, systematic therapy the small molecular target antiangiogenesis medicine sorafenib were used to prevent recurrence. Unfortunately, the double blind randomized STORM trial shows a negative result that postoperative antiangiogenesis therapy was failed to suppress recurrence and prolong survival period for HCC patients. Thus, novel effective systematic therapy to suppress postoperative recurrence is in urgent need.

At present, the PD-1 antibody has presented a promising and safe therapeutic result of unresectable HCC and provided good survival benefit for advanced HCC patients. Consistent with this, we proposed a hypothesis that a novel immunetherapy using the PD-1 antibody could suppress postoperative recurrence and prolong HCC patients survival period effectively.