Conversion therapy strategies for hepatocellular carcinoma in the era of targeted therapy combined with immunotherapy / 中华消化外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has an insidious onset, and most HCC patients have reached the intermediate-advanced stage when they were diagnosed, which lead to missing the opportunity for radical treatment and suffering a poor prognosis. Conversion therapy is an important tool to improve the prognosis of patients with unresectable HCC by creating resectable opportunities. With the new targeted agents, anti-vascular agents, immune agents and multi-dimensional treatment regimens bringing high objective response rate and long duration of remission in HCC treatment, conversion therapy has emerged as a hot spot in the clinical research of HCC. In the era of targeted therapy combined with immunotherapy, the connotation of conversion therapy for HCC continues to expand, with strategies constantly being updated. As such, conversion therapy for HCC has entered a rapid development period, but still faces many challenges. Combined with clinical experience and the latest research progress, based on the efficacy of systematic therapy with targeted combined immunotherapy as the core and combined local therapy in advanced HCC, the authors summarize the definition and expansion of conversion therapy and the conversion therapy strategies in oncology.