Author(s)

Xinhua Wu, Zhengrong Shi

Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.

Primary liver cancer is one of the most common malignant tumours in the world, and according to statistics, about half of liver cancers occur in China, which seriously threatens the lives and health of people around the world, especially in China. Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type, accounting for about 90 per cent of primary liver cancers. Most patients are asymptomatic in the early stage and fail to pay attention to it. Most of the patients are in the middle or late stage when they are first diagnosed, and only 20% - 30% of them can receive radical hepatectomy. Patients are through the treatment to make the tumour shrinkage and downstaging, to achieve the condition of resectable, that is, the conversion treatment. Conversion therapy has great potential for development and has now become an indispensable treatment for intermediate and advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. However, there are various treatment options for conversion therapy, no uniform guidelines to guide clinical selection, and the overall conversion rate is still low, so it is particularly important to explore appropriate conversion therapy options. This article mainly describes the existing conversion therapies, hoping to provide help and ideas for exploring the best conversion therapies in the future.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Transarterial Chemoembolization (TACE), Hepatic artery Infusion Chemotherapy (HAIC), Targeted Therapy, Immunotherapy

Wu, X. and Shi, Z. (2024) Advances in Conversion Therapy for Primary Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Journal of Cancer Therapy, 15, 121-129. doi: 10.4236/jct.2024.154012.