Efficacy of the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab in the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with the exhausted possibilities of therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most formidable and deadly cancers. The limited possibilities of surgical methods of treatment as well as the formation of multiple drug resistance caused by the biological characteristics of both the liver tissue itself and tumor cells with their microenvironment determine the unsatisfactory indicators of relapse free survival and overall survival of patients. In addition, therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which has become the “gold” standard, has limited possibilities: a large number of side effects significantly reduce the quality of life and adherence to treatment in patients with hepatocellular cancer. The search for molecular biological targets, as well as new therapeutic agents that block these targets, does not always lead to positive results. Immunotherapy in this sense is a priority, having good tolerance, a low number of side effects, no need for additional testing of the patient’s biological material before starting treatment, high efficiency and a long response time. However, there are many unresolved questions about the duration of therapy, predicting its efficacy, the optimal combination of drugs or the use of monotherapy, the formation of priority subgroups of patients. Understanding the mechanisms of immune evasion, an ability that hepatocellular carcinoma possesses, – is the key to successful use of immunotherapeutic agents alone, in combination with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, antiangiogenic drugs or among themselves. This article provides an overview of data from clinical studies of modern drugs for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and describes the mechanism of liver immunological tolerance as a possible predictive marker of sensitivity to immunotherapy. It seems promising to study the role of cells in the microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma for predicting the effectiveness of immunotherapy. The clinical example is used to demonstrate the successful experience of using the immunotherapeutic drug nivolumab in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This is a classic example of duration of response to therapy, lack of reactivation of chronic viral hepatitis and controlled toxicity. All these indicators enable the clinician to consider immunotherapy as a priority option for the treatment of inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• metastatic liver cancer
• tyrosine kinase inhibitors
• immune checkpoint inhibitors
• nivolumab