Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Mar 31, 2019; 7(3): 80-95
Published online Mar 31, 2019. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v7.i3.80
Prospects for immunotherapy as a novel therapeutic strategy against hepatocellular carcinoma
Yu Akazawa, Toshihiro Suzuki, Toshiaki Yoshikawa, Shoichi Mizuno, Yasunari Nakamoto, Tetsuya Nakatsura
Yu Akazawa, Toshihiro Suzuki, Toshiaki Yoshioka, Shoichi Mizuno, Tetsuya Nakatsura, Division of Cancer Immunotherapy, Exploratory Oncology Research and Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center, Kashiwa 277-8577, Japan
Yu Akazawa, Yasunari Nakamoto, Second Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui 910-1193, Japan
Author contributions: Akazawa Y and Nakatsura T drafted the manuscript; all authors reviewed the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Nakatsura T and Suzuki T are supported by fundamental research funding from Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nakatsura T, Suzuki T and Yoshikawa T are supported by fundamental research funding from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and BrightPath Biotherapeutics Co., Ltd.; Nakatsura T is supported by fundamental research funding from Noile-Immune Biotech Inc. and Sysmex Co., Ltd. The other authors have no conflict of interest.
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/
Corresponding author: Tetsuya Nakatsura, MD, PhD, Doctor, Professor, Division of Cancer Immunotherapy, Exploratory Oncology Research and Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center, 6-5-1 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa 277-8577, Japan. tnakatsu@east.ncc.go.jp
Telephone: +81-4-71315490 Fax: +81-4-71336606
Received: February 20, 2019
Peer-review started: February 20, 2019
First decision: March 5, 2019
Revised: March 12, 2019
Accepted: March 16, 2019
Article in press: March 16, 2019
Published online: March 31, 2019
Processing time: 39 Days and 0.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly aggressive malignant disease, with a poor prognosis. Recent developments and advances in cancer immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, could lead to a major paradigm shift in standard HCC therapy. This review aims to provide an overview of novel immunotherapies, including antigen-based immunotherapies such as glypican-3-targeted immunotherapy, and immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy against HCC. It also discusses the future prospects of cancer immunotherapy against HCC.