Unraveling the immune-activated tumor microenvironment correlated with clinical response to atezolizumab plus bevacizumab in advanced HCC.

ABSTRACT:

Background & aims

Despite atezolizumab plus bevacizumab being a standard treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a significant proportion of patients do not achieve durable benefit. This study aimed to identify predictive biomarkers for this therapy by investigating the role of immune activation within the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Methods

We characterized the intratumoral TME of patients with advanced HCC treated with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab using single cell transcriptomics on pretreatment tumor biopsies from 12 patients. To complement and support these findings, we integrated our single cell data with publicly available bulk RNA-sequencing data from independent clinical trial cohorts.

Results

Patients who responded to combination therapy wi

SUBMITTER: Lim J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11929055 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature