Adjunctive immunotherapy enhances antitumor efficacy and improves survival of hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Adjunctive immunotherapy is an efficient treatment for cancers by stimulating cytotoxic lymphocytes activities against cancer cells. In this study, we determined whether the conventional cancer treatment combined with adjunctive immunotherapy could prolong the survival of patients with liver cancer. The retrospective cohort studies were studied in 320 newly diagnosed advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients from Jan 2011 to May 2015 in the national center for cancer treatment. Most of enrolled patients were undergone chemotherapy (25.6%), radiotherapy 88 (27.5%) or surgery (36.9%) for liver cancer treatments. The effects of adjuvant immunotherapy therapy were follow-up reports approximately maximal 4.33 years (for adjuvant immunotherapy users). The survival of patients with liver cancer treated by adjuvant immunotherapy were significantly extended associated with a decreased risk of metastasis and death compared with patients without immunotherapy therapy [hazard ratio (HR)=0.78, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.74-0.92]. The protective effects against recurrence were enhanced and survival rate was improved significantly in liver cancer patients nursed by immunotherapy therapy. In conclusion, this respective cohort study suggests that adjunctive immunotherapy therapy improved the survival rate in patients with HCC and provided clinical information for further studies to confirm the potential role of adjunctive immunotherapy therapy in HCC.