March 18 every year is National Liver Love Day. This year’s “Everyone Talks Immunity” public welfare popular science video focuses on the interpretation of liver cancer science popularization and the application of immunotherapy in the field of liver cancer. It is explained by Professor Zhou Jian, Vice President of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University.
Among the known hepatitis viruses, except for hepatitis A virus, all other viruses are related to liver cancer, especially hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV). There is a close relationship between HBV infection and the occurrence of liver cancer, and the correlation rate between the two is as high as 75%. In my country, about 80% of liver cancer patients have a history of hepatitis B infection, which is the main reason why my country has become a big country with liver cancer.
The early symptoms of liver cancer are insidious. In China, about 55% of liver cancer patients are in stage III or IV at the time of diagnosis. They are advanced liver cancer and lose the chance of radical surgery. . Faced with this dilemma, patients urgently need more effective treatment options.
Immunotherapy is an emerging treatment option in recent years. In the field of liver cancer, a number of immunotherapies have been approved for first-line treatment of advanced liver cancer. PD-1/PD-L1 antibody (immune checkpoint inhibitor) can promote the activation and proliferation of T cells in the tumor microenvironment, restore the activity of killer T lymphocytes, and achieve the effect of killing cancer cells.
However, not all patients with advanced liver cancer are suitable for immunotherapy, and there are still many patients with advanced liver cancer who do not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Clinical studies in the past two years have confirmed that the combination of molecular targeted therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors can increase the effective rate of immunotherapy to more than 30%. The combined treatment plan of local ablation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy has also been gradually carried out in clinical practice. Therefore, the comprehensive treatment mode of liver cancer with immunotherapy as the core will bring hope to some patients with advanced liver cancer.
At the same time, in order to reduce the burden on patients, the state has included the domestic PD-1 immunotherapy drug sintilimab into the national major disease medical insurance reimbursement category, which has greatly improved the incidence of liver cancer. Access to international first-line treatment options for patients.
（Pan Jiayi）