Advances in drug development for hepatocellular carcinoma: clinical trials and potential therapeutic targets

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Although hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest health burdens worldwide, few drugs are available for its clinical treatment. However, in recent years, major breakthroughs have been made in the development of new drugs due to intensive fundamental research and numerous clinical trials in HCC. Traditional systemic therapy schemes and emerging immunotherapy strategies have both advanced. Between 2017 and 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a variety of drugs for the treatment of HCC, including multikinase inhibitors (regorafenib, lenvatinib, cabozantinib, and ramucirumab), immune checkpoint inhibitors (nivolumab and pembrolizumab), and bevacizumab combined with atezolizumab. Currently, there are more than 1000 ongoing clinical trials involving HCC, which represents a vibrant atmosphere in the HCC drug research and development field. Additionally, traditional Chinese medicine approaches are being gradually optimized. This review summarizes FDA-approved agents for HCC, elucidates promising agents evaluated in clinical phase I/II/III trials and identifies emerging targets for HCC treatment. In addition, we introduce the development of HCC drugs in China. Finally, we discuss potential problems in HCC drug therapy and possible future solutions and indicate future directions for the development of drugs for HCC treatment.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13046-021-01968-w.

Related collections

Most cited references 150

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Global Cancer Statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries

Ahmedin Jemal, Lindsey A Torre, Rebecca Siegel … (2018)

This article provides a status report on the global burden of cancer worldwide using the GLOBOCAN 2018 estimates of cancer incidence and mortality produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, with a focus on geographic variability across 20 world regions. There will be an estimated 18.1 million new cancer cases (17.0 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) and 9.6 million cancer deaths (9.5 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) in 2018. In both sexes combined, lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer (11.6% of the total cases) and the leading cause of cancer death (18.4% of the total cancer deaths), closely followed by female breast cancer (11.6%), prostate cancer (7.1%), and colorectal cancer (6.1%) for incidence and colorectal cancer (9.2%), stomach cancer (8.2%), and liver cancer (8.2%) for mortality. Lung cancer is the most frequent cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among males, followed by prostate and colorectal cancer (for incidence) and liver and stomach cancer (for mortality). Among females, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death, followed by colorectal and lung cancer (for incidence), and vice versa (for mortality); cervical cancer ranks fourth for both incidence and mortality. The most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death, however, substantially vary across countries and within each country depending on the degree of economic development and associated social and life style factors. It is noteworthy that high-quality cancer registry data, the basis for planning and implementing evidence-based cancer control programs, are not available in most low- and middle-income countries. The Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development is an international partnership that supports better estimation, as well as the collection and use of local data, to prioritize and evaluate national cancer control efforts. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 2018;0:1-31. © 2018 American Cancer Society.

0 comments Cited 27140 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Cancer statistics in China, 2015.

Wanqing Chen, Rongshou Zheng, Peter D Baade … (2016)

With increasing incidence and mortality, cancer is the leading cause of death in China and is a major public health problem. Because of China's massive population (1.37 billion), previous national incidence and mortality estimates have been limited to small samples of the population using data from the 1990s or based on a specific year. With high-quality data from an additional number of population-based registries now available through the National Central Cancer Registry of China, the authors analyzed data from 72 local, population-based cancer registries (2009-2011), representing 6.5% of the population, to estimate the number of new cases and cancer deaths for 2015. Data from 22 registries were used for trend analyses (2000-2011). The results indicated that an estimated 4292,000 new cancer cases and 2814,000 cancer deaths would occur in China in 2015, with lung cancer being the most common incident cancer and the leading cause of cancer death. Stomach, esophageal, and liver cancers were also commonly diagnosed and were identified as leading causes of cancer death. Residents of rural areas had significantly higher age-standardized (Segi population) incidence and mortality rates for all cancers combined than urban residents (213.6 per 100,000 vs 191.5 per 100,000 for incidence; 149.0 per 100,000 vs 109.5 per 100,000 for mortality, respectively). For all cancers combined, the incidence rates were stable during 2000 through 2011 for males (+0.2% per year; P = .1), whereas they increased significantly (+2.2% per year; P < .05) among females. In contrast, the mortality rates since 2006 have decreased significantly for both males (-1.4% per year; P < .05) and females (-1.1% per year; P < .05). Many of the estimated cancer cases and deaths can be prevented through reducing the prevalence of risk factors, while increasing the effectiveness of clinical care delivery, particularly for those living in rural areas and in disadvantaged populations.

0 comments Cited 4289 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Atezolizumab plus Bevacizumab in Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Richard S Finn, Shukui Qin, Masafumi Ikeda … (2020)

The combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab showed encouraging antitumor activity and safety in a phase 1b trial involving patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

0 comments Cited 2380 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Xing-Xing He:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0001-8473

xxhe@tjh.tjmu.edu.cn

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Exp Clin Cancer Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Exp Clin Cancer Res

Title: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research : CR

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Print): 0392-9078

ISSN (Electronic): 1756-9966

Publication date (Electronic): 18 May 2021

Publication date PMC-release: 18 May 2021

Publication date Collection: 2021

Volume: 40

Electronic Location Identifier: 172

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.33199.31, ISNI 0000 0004 0368 7223, Institute of Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, , Huazhong University of Science and Technology, ; Wuhan, 430030 China

[2 ]GRID grid.33199.31, ISNI 0000 0004 0368 7223, Hubei Key Laboratory of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Diseases, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, , Huazhong University of Science and Technology, ; Wuhan, 430030 China

[3 ]GRID grid.414008.9, ISNI 0000 0004 1799 4638, Department of Medical Oncology, , The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University & Henan Cancer Hospital, ; Zhengzhou, 450008 China

[4 ]GRID grid.33199.31, ISNI 0000 0004 0368 7223, Department of Oncology, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College, , Huazhong University of Science and Technology, ; Wuhan, 430030 China

Author information

Xing-Xing He http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0001-8473

Article

Publisher ID: 1968

DOI: 10.1186/s13046-021-01968-w

PMC ID: 8130401

PubMed ID: 34006331

SO-VID: 7e0b7127-5f7f-4de6-a67e-2be12e0e2267

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 9 February 2021

Date accepted : 27 April 2021

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Oncology & Radiotherapy

Keywords: liver cancer,treatment,molecular mechanism,traditional chinese medicine,immunotherapy

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Oncology & Radiotherapy

Keywords: liver cancer, treatment, molecular mechanism, traditional chinese medicine, immunotherapy

Advances in drug development for hepatocellular carcinoma: clinical trials and potential therapeutic targets

Read this article at

Abstract

Supplementary Information

Related collections

Cancer Immunotherapy

Most cited references 150

Global Cancer Statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries

Cancer statistics in China, 2015.

Atezolizumab plus Bevacizumab in Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author information

Article

History

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 449

Cited by 74

Most referenced authors 4,008