The study conducted by a group of researchers from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has provided insight into the mechanism behind hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patient’s resistance to the programmed death 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), contributing to the understanding of HCC therapy

In general, the prognosis for liver cancer is poor because patients are often diagnosed with liver cancer in advanced stage, while its cancer cells can still survive in hypoxia.^1,2 In a recent study conducted by Wong CL and colleagues from the Department of Pathology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, published in Nature Communications, it was found that hypoxia-induced macropinocytosis is a new metabolic mechanism in liver cancer cells, by which causing the engulfment of extracellular fluid and the subsequent protein digestion to support the unlimited growth of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).¹ The breakthrough discovery indicates that inhibiting hypoxia-induced macropinocytosis could be a novel and effective therapeutic approach for HCC.¹ This study could also be applied to other solid cancer types with hypoxia.¹

Adjuvant chemotherapy is a standard of care after complete surgical resection in patients with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).¹ The phase 3 IMpower010 trial aimed to evaluate adjuvant atezolizumab (anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1)] versus best supportive care (BSC) after adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with completely resected NSCLC, at the disease-free survival (DFS) interim analysis.² The study randomized 1,005 people with a ratio of 1:1 to receive adjuvant atezolizumab (1,200mg every 21 days; for 16 cycles or 1 year) or BSC following surgical resection (4-12 weeks prior) and up to 4 cycles of adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy.² The possible impact on DFS and types of surgery therapies prior to adjuvant atezolizumab were also examined. DFS was presented by disease stage and nodal status (NO vs. N1 vs. N2).³

Patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC) and Child-Pugh B (CPB) cirrhosis have a poor prognosis and are often excluded from clinical trials.¹ The overall survival (OS) of sorafenib-treated patients with CPB and aHCC is approximately 4 months.¹ Based on the CheckMate 040 trial, which was an open-label, multicohort and phase 1/2 study, nivolumab received accelerated approval in the United States for sorafenib-treated patients with aHCC.¹ At a median follow-up of 16.3 months, the investigator-assessed objective response rate (ORR) and median OS were 12% and 7.6 months in CPB (cohort 5) patients, respectively.¹ The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines thus recommended nivolumab as a treatment option for certain CPB and aHCC patients.¹ The long-term efficacy, safety and biomarker analyses for this CPB cohort were presented, which was probably the first prospective immunotherapy trial in this population.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and accounts for approximately 5.7% of all new cancer cases annually.1 In Hong Kong, HCC is the fourth and seventh most common cancer in men and women, respectively, and is the third leading cause of cancer-related death.2 In a

Compared to patients without hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, those with HCV are associated with a 15 to 20-fold increase in risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as well as being the most common reason for liver transplantation in Europe and the United States (US).1,2 Prior to 2011, H

Treatment options were scarce for advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Yet, the efficacy of combination therapy with atezolizumab and nab-paclitaxel was illustrated in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.¹

Fatty liver encompasses broad spectrum of conditions that lead to accumulation of fat in the liver. In Asia, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its subsets are increasing due to altered dietary habits and lifestyle factors.¹

Chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection is a global public health challenge in the same scale as tuberculosis, HIV, or malaria.¹ Globally, HBV infection causes considerable amount of liver-related morbidity and mortality. In Hong Kong, 7.8% of the population suffers from HBV infection,