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Review
. 2020 Feb 10:7:11-17.
doi: 10.2147/JHC.S187121. eCollection 2020.

The Immune Modulation Effect of Locoregional Therapies and Its Potential Synergy with Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Prabhsimranjot Singh  1   2 , Sudhamshi Toom  3 , Akshay Avula  4 , Vivek Kumar  2 , Osama E Rahma  1   2
Affiliations
Review

The Immune Modulation Effect of Locoregional Therapies and Its Potential Synergy with Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Prabhsimranjot Singh et al. J Hepatocell Carcinoma. .

Abstract

Locoregional therapies (LRTs) including radiofrequency ablation, surgical resection, and TACE, play a pivotal role in the treatment of early stage/locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Besides their direct effect on tumor cells, LRTs also play an essential role in the immunomodulation of the tumor microenvironment which is of interest in the current era of cancer immunotherapy. In this review, we describe the HCC immune microenvironment and how it is affected by LRTs as described in multiple pre-clinical and clinical studies and provide the rationale for combining LRTs with immunotherapy.

Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma; immunotherapy; locoregional therapies.

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Conflict of interest statement

Osama E Rahma reports research support from Merck. He is a speaker for activities supported by educational grants from BMS and Merck. He is also a consultant for Merck, Celgene, Five Prime, GSK, GFK, Imvax, Defined Health INC, Roche/Genentech, Puretech, Leerink and PRMA Consulting. Dr Rahma has a patent: Methods of Using Pembrolizumab and Trebananib pending. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immunological effects of Loco-regional therapies in management of HCC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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