Immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide with increasing incidence in the western world, about half of them in China. Current curative treatment options for HCC include surgical resection and liver transplantation, but these approaches are restricted to carefully selected patients who may benefit from such interventions. Systemic chemotherapy and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) prolong survival of patients who are not eligible for surgical treatment, but these methods only suit for patients with adequate liver function. Therefore, novel alternative treatments such as immunotherapy are currently being evaluated in patients with advanced HCC. Advances in the understanding of tumor immunology have opened new ways to treat certain malignant tumors and may also be the case for patients with HCC in the near future. In this chapter, we will review recent progress in immunotherapy of HCC in the world, including China.