Researchers make breakthrough in liver cancer immunotherapy

Local experts have completed the world’s first phase-1 clinical trial on CAR-T treatment for terminal liver cancer. Their research was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

A patient formerly diagnosed with terminal liver cancer has been living with the disease for nearly five years without being detected with cancerous changes and has normal data on liver cancer biomarkers, said experts from Renji Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine on Wednesday.

CAR-T, or Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Immunotherapy, is a type of immunotherapy that uses a patient’s own immunity against cancer while not hurting healthy cells.

In the therapy, T-cells, a type of immune cell, are guided to attack cancerous cells through a gene engineering technology which helps T-cells to produce antigen receptors that recognize a surface antigen on cancer cells.

Liver cancer is the third deadliest cancer in China, and 466,000 new patients are diagnosed each year. The five-year survival rate for patients with early stage liver cancer is 50 to 60 percent and the average survival for those with terminal liver cancer is one year.

“However, most patients are diagnosed with liver cancer in the middle or terminal stage, missing the opportunity for surgery. Though there are several treatments, patients with terminal liver cancer have a high relapse and metastasis rate, requiring more effective and low toxicity treatment,” said Dr Zhai Bo, director of Renji Hospital’s interventional oncology department and the research’s leading scientist.

In 2015, he teamed up with a local pharmaceutical company to carry out the world’s first CAR-T therapy targeting the GPC3 antigen in terminal liver cancer patients.

A total of 13 terminal patients with GPC3 expression were included in the research and all showed positive results.

“There are more studies we should do to perfect the therapy, but the research has collected very precious experiences for CAR-T treatment on solid tumors like liver cancer and shows that CAR-T has good effects on certain liver cancer patients,” Zhai said.

GPC3 is a carcino-embryonic antigen found in 70 to 80 percent of liver cancer patients. It is considered a promising target for cancer immunotherapy, experts said.

Ti Gong