Immunotherapy for hepatocellular cancer: a review of current status

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver cancer and the fourth common cause of malignancy-related death worldwide. Unfortunately, most patients with HCC are first diagnosed at advanced and metastatic stages which require systemic management including chemotherapy, molecularly targeted therapy, or immunotherapy (IT). HCC has been suggested as a relatively chemotherapy-refractory cancer so recent systemic therapy developments have been focused on targeted or IT. Recently, IT demonstrated promising anti-HCC effects in different settings of treatment. Also, multiple ongoing clinical trials are currently evaluating immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for HCC as monotherapy or combination therapy in different settings. This chapter reviews the current knowledge of IT for HCC with recently finished or ongoing clinical trials that may hold promise for better management and improved outcomes of patients with HCC.