Aims
We evaluated the clinical effectiveness of irreversible electroporation (IRE) in combination with immunotherapy using allogenic natural killer cells (NK) for stage IV hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Background/aims
We evaluated the clinical effectiveness of irreversible electroporation (IRE) in combination with immunotherapy using allogenic natural killer cells (NK) for stage IV hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Conclusion
IRE combined with allogeneic NK cell immunotherapy significantly increases the median OS of patients with stage IV HCC.
Methods
The study involved 40 patients with stage IV HCC who were divided equally into two groups: 1) simple IRE; and 2) IRE plus allogenic NK cells (IRE-NK); we mainly assessed the overall survival (OS).
Results
The effect of the IRE-NK treatment was synergistic, i.e., not only did it enhance immune function, it also decreased alpha-fetoprotein expression and showed significantly good clinical effectiveness. At the median 7.6-month follow-up (range, 3.8-12.1 months), median OS was higher in the IRE-NK group (10.1 months) than in the IRE group (8.9 months, P = 0.0078).