Chemotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma: The present and the future.

Chemotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma: The present and the future. World J Hepatol. 2017 Jul 28;9(21):907-920 Authors: Le Grazie M, Biagini MR, Tarocchi M, Polvani S, Galli A Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary tumor of the liver. Its relationship to chronic liver diseases, in particular cirrhosis, develops on a background of viral hepatitis, excessive alcohol intake or metabolic steatohepatitis, leads to a high incidence and prevalence of this neoplasia worldwide. Despite the spread of HCC, its treatment it's still a hard challenge, due to high rate of late diagnosis and to lack of therapeutic options for advanced disease. In fact radical surgery and liver transplantation, the most radical therapeutic approaches, are indicated only in case of early diagnosis. Even local therapies, such as transarterial chemoembolization, find limited indications, leading to an important problem regarding treatment of advanced disease. In this situation, until terminal HCC occurs, systemic therapy is the only possible approach, with sorafenib as the only standard treatment available. Anyway, the efficacy of this drug is limited and many efforts are necessary to understand who could benefit more with this treatment. Therefore, other molecules for a targeted therapy were evaluated, but only regorafenib showed promising results. Beside molecular target therapy, also cytotoxic drugs, in particular oxaliplatin- and gemci...
Source: World Journal of Hepatology - Category: Gastroenterology Tags: World J Hepatol Source Type: research