There is little evidence showed that adjuvant therapy had been shown to extend the survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) receiving surgical resection. We investigated whether injections of highly-purified Cytotoxic T lymphocytes prolongs recurrence-free survival of patients after resection for HCC.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Resection is considered as the main curative treatment for HCC, but recurrence of tumor within the liver remnant is common, with a reported 5-year recurrence rate of 70%, which results in poor prognosis of HCC, and the high recurrence rate has led efforts to develop adjuvant therapies to reduce recurrence. However, the benefit of any form of adjuvant therapy remains unclear. Current guidelines didn't recommend any adjuvant therapy after resection. A previous clinical trial from Japan reported that cytokine-induced killer(CIK) cell immunotherapy increased recurrence-free survival (RFS) after surgical resection of HCC. Immunotherapy has become an optional treatment for HCC. Cytotoxic T lymphocytes(CTL), a kind of effective T cells that specific recognizing and killing antigen targeted cells through cloning amplification after receiving antigen information from antigen presented cell and playing key role to clear cancerous cells. There is little evidence for adjuvant CTL treatment for HCC receiving resection. So our hypothesis is that adjuvant highly-purified CTL is superior to resection alone for HCC. The aim of this prospective study is to compare the outcome of resection combined with highly-purified CTL with resection for HCC.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
210
hepatectomy for HCC
hepatectomy first, followed by highly-purified CTL treatment
recurrence free survival
from the date of randomization to the first recurrence or to death from any cause
Time frame: 2-year
overall survival
from the date of randomization until death from any cause, and cancer-specific survival was measured from the date. from the date of randomization until death from any cause, and cancer-specific survival was measured from the date of randomization until death resulting from HCC
Time frame: 5-year
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