Improving the Use of Immunotherapy to Treat Liver Cancer

This project targets patients with a form of primary liver cancer, specifically "hepatocellular carcinoma". This disease often develops in the context of a chronically diseased liver, caused by viral infections, excessive alcohol consumption, or fatty liver. Primarily due to the rise of the latter risk factor, liver cancer is one of the few cancer types whose incidence continues to increase globally, year after year. As a result, liver cancer has become the third most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. There exists a significant challenge in reducing the disease on all fronts: prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

This research aims to personalize the treatment of liver cancer patients, tailoring it to the individual. More specifically, this research seeks to identify patients with immunotherapy-sensitive liver cancer by biomarkers before treatment begins. Determining whether a tumor is immunotherapy-sensitive is internationally recognized as one of the most important challenges within this condition. Based on a combination of existing laboratory techniques on tumor tissue and/or blood, the investigators seek to predict the likelihood of this treatment's success before initiating it. With this knowledge, the investigators could recommend alternative treatments to patients with tumors that are unresponsive. This way, they would also avoid exposure to the side effects of an ineffective therapy.