Toxicity and efficacy of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (Review).

The prognosis of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains poor, particularly for patients with portal vein tumor thrombosis. Chemotherapy is one of the most significant treatment options for patients with advanced HCC not indicated for hepatic resection, percutaneous ablation and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization. Systemic chemotherapy does not play a central role in the treatment of HCC due to the issue of low sensitivity for chemotherapeutic agents and the difficulties in administering a sufficient dose due to chronic liver dysfunction. Therefore, patients with advanced HCC are usually treated with hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC), which is increasingly used as an approach to advanced HCC in Japan. HAIC provides moderate therapeutic efficacy and survival benefit with substantially tolerable toxicity profiles in patients with advanced HCC.