Development of systemic therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma at 2013: updates and insights.

ABSTRACT: A growing number of multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) has undergone testing for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Unfortunately, this enthusiasm has recently been discouraged by a number of negative phase III studies on several anti-angiogenic TKIs in HCC. Several postulations have been made to account for this phenomenon, namely the plateau effects of anti-angiogenesis approach, the heterogeneity of HCC in terms of background hepatitis/cirrhosis and tumor biology, as well as the way how clinical trials are designed. Regardless of the underlying reasons, these results suggested that alternative strategies are necessary to further develop systemic therapy for HCC. Several new strategies are currently evaluated: for examples, molecular agents with activities against targets other

SUBMITTER: Chan SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3964385 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature