Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1089: Scientific Rationale for Combined Immunotherapy with PD-1/PD-L1 Antibodies and VEGF Inhibitors in Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1089: Scientific Rationale for Combined Immunotherapy with PD-1/PD-L1 Antibodies and VEGF Inhibitors in Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers12051089 Authors: Masatoshi Kudo A successful phase III trial for the combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab (the IMbrave150 trial) in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma has recently been reported. This is groundbreaking because nivolumab and pembrolizumab, both programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) antibodies, have failed to show efficacy as first- and second-line therapeutics, respectively, in phase III clinical trials. Immunotherapy with a combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab resulted in better survival than treatment with sorafenib for the first time since sorafenib was approved in 2007. The high efficacy of the combination of PD-1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antibodies is not only due to their additive effects on tumor growth, but also to their reprogramming of the immunosuppressive microenvironment into an immunostimulatory microenvironment. These results were confirmed in a phase Ib trial that showed significantly longer progression-free survival in the atezolizumab plus bevacizumab group than in patients that received atezolizumab alone. These results demonstrate that immunotherapy with a combination of PD-1/PD-L1 and VEGF inhibitors is effective and may result in a reprogramming of the tumor microenvironment. The resu...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research