Samonakis DN, Kouroumalis EA. Systemic treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma: Still unmet expectations. World J Hepatol 2017; 9(2): 80-90 [PMID: 28144389 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v9.i2.80]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Dr. Dimitrios N Samonakis, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Heraklion, Heraklion, 71110 Crete, Greece. dsamonakis@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hepatol. Jan 18, 2017; 9(2): 80-90 Published online Jan 18, 2017. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v9.i2.80
Systemic treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma: Still unmet expectations
Dimitrios N Samonakis, Elias A Kouroumalis
Dimitrios N Samonakis, Elias A Kouroumalis, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Heraklion, 71110 Crete, Greece
Author contributions: Samonakis DN and Kouroumalis EA contributed equally to this work.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest in relation to this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Dimitrios N Samonakis, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Heraklion, Heraklion, 71110 Crete, Greece. dsamonakis@gmail.com
Telephone: +30-2810-392356 Fax: +30-2810-542085
Received: July 16, 2016 Peer-review started: July 18, 2016 First decision: August 26, 2016 Revised: October 14, 2016 Accepted: November 21, 2016 Article in press: November 22, 2016 Published online: January 18, 2017 Processing time: 183 Days and 17.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: The complete failure of chemotherapy in previous years gradually shifted hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treatment to the molecular targeted therapies. The initial-albeit limited - effectiveness of the currently approved systemic therapy, sorafenib, is due to the successful combination of targeting cancer cells and their microenvironment. Trials on drugs other than sorafenib, alone or in combination with drugs or transcatheter arterial chemoembolization were disappointing. Recently, genomic based analyses in HCC patients have proposed subclasses, based on molecular characteristics and a proliferative or non-proliferative genotypes. Combined targeted therapies, driven by specific molecular signatures for treatment selection and monitoring, potentially with immunotherapy, could be a future personalized approach.
