Abstract
Liver cancer ranks as the second leading cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. To date, neither current ablation therapy nor chemotherapy are considered ideal in improving the outcome of liver cancer. Therefore, more effective therapies for treating this devastating disease are urgently required. Interventional therapy has been used for numerous years in the treatment of different types of cancer, and is characterized by the direct delivery of anticancer drugs into the tumor. It has been reported that antimalarial chloroquine diphosphate (CQ) exerts effective anticancer activity against several types of cancer. However, its effect on liver cancer remains unclear. Therefore, in the present study, 2D monolayer cell culture and 3D spheroid in vitro models, and a rat model, were utilized to investigate the effect of CQ on liver cancer. CQ demonstrated an effective anticancer effect on HepG2 cells and 3D liver spheroids. Furthermore, the drug significantly inhibited cell growth and viability in the 2D and 3D in vitro models. The CQ-based intervention treatment effectively attenuated tumor size and weight, increased food intake and consumption of drinking water, and improved body weight and survival rate of rats in the in vivo model. In addition, treatment with CQ potently increased the expression levels of the apoptosis-related genes. Taken together, the findings of the present study may provide a novel insight into the development of safe and effective treatments for liver cancer.