Cell-mediated immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer. Most of the time, these tumors are diagnosed at late stages. Because no effective treatments exist for patients with advanced stage HCC, there is an urgent need for novel, effective treatments. Cancer cells originate as a consequence of abnormal expression of oncogenes or loss of tumor suppressor genes. Often, neoplastic transformation results in a hyper-mutated cellular genome, which in turn produces neo-antigens from mutated genes. These tumorspecific or tumor-associated antigens can be recognized by antigen-presenting cells and trigger T-lymphocytes to elicit anticancer immunity. Immune responses to cancers are often rendered ineffective by tumor immune-editing and immune-suppressive mechanisms. Yet, therapeutic strategies to stimulate anti-cancer immunity have had remarkable success in several solid and hematological malignancies. Among the various strategies for cancer immunotherapy, cell-mediated immunotherapy holds considerable promise to overcome anergy and systemic immune suppression. This brief review will focus on cell-mediated immunotherapy for HCC.