The Immune Modulation Effect of Locoregional Therapies and Its Potential Synergy with Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Prabhsimranjot Singh,1,2 Sudhamshi Toom,3 Akshay Avula,4 Vivek Kumar,2 Osama E Rahma1,2 1Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA; 2Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 3Hematology and Oncology, Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA; 4Pulmonary and Critical Care, Staten Island University Hospital, Staten Island, NY, USACorrespondence: Prabhsimranjot Singh Email [email protected]: Locoregional therapies (LRTs) including radiofrequency ablation, surgical resection, and TACE, play a pivotal role in the treatment of early stage/locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Besides their direct effect on tumor cells, LRTs also play an essential role in the immunomodulation of the tumor microenvironment which is of interest in the current era of cancer immunotherapy. In this review, we describe the HCC immune microenvironment and how it is affected by LRTs as described in multiple pre-clinical and clinical studies and provide the rationale for combining LRTs with immunotherapy.Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, immunotherapy, locoregional therapies

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• immunotherapy
• locoregional therapies.