Author(s)

Xiaowen Lu¹, Xiongshan Shen^2*

¹School of Medicine, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
²Xiaogan Hospital Affiliated to Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Xiaogan, China.

The current treatments of liver cancer in China are mainly comprehensive treatment and systematic treatment, with poor therapeutic effect and high recurrence rate and metastasis rate. The existence of immunosuppressive microenvironment is an important reason for liver tumor cells to escape from the host immune system, and also an important basis for the occurrence and development of liver cancer. With the recent transformation of the target of tumor therapy from tumor cells to tumor cell immune microenvironment, immunotherapy has emerged quietly. It is a new strategy for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma to improve the immune attack on tumor cells by changing the immunosuppressive environment of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Immune checkpoint is the main mechanism by which liver cancer cells escape the host immune system. PD-1/PDL-1 and CTLA-4 are targeted immunocheckpoint inhibitors, which have shown good therapeutic effects and application prospects in the clinical treatment of HCC. This article reviews the latest advances in immunocheckpoint inhibitors in the immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Liver Cancer, Immunotherapy, Immunosuppressive Microenvironment, Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor, PD-1/PDL-1, CTLA-4

Lu, X. and Shen, X. (2019) Advances in Research on Immunological Checkpoint Inhibitors in Immunotherapy of Liver Cancer. International Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10, 62-69. doi: 10.4236/ijcm.2019.102006.