Medical therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma

摘要

Medical therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma are limited. Standard antimitotic chemotherapies and hormonotherapies are inefficient. Only sorafenib, an antiangiogenic agent inhibiting the VEGF and PDGF receptors as well as MAP kinase pathway, has shown a significant benefit on patient survival. However, its indication is restricted to patients with multifocal hepatocellular carcinoma not responding to transarterial hepatic chemoembolization or patients with hepatocellular carcinoma invading the venous portal tract or spreading to lymph nodes or as distant visceral metastasis.