In 2016, the liver cancer had affected 39,000 people of which approximately 27,000 people died in the country alone. The death toll included more men than women. As of now, only a few ways are known to prevent and treat liver cancer. While the scientists are working tirelessly on the liver cancer research and finding ways to prevent liver cancer, the doctors are working on improving its treatment.
In most cases, liver cancer starts in the liver cells known as hepatocytes and more than often it spreads to other organs such as lungs or breasts. Since the liver is an important organ of the body and cannot function without it, a lot of time and money is spent on liver cancer research. Also, several immunotherapies such as monoclonal antibodies, checkpoint inhibitors/immune modulators, adoptive cell transfer, and oncolytic virus therapy have shown promising results in the clinical trials.
In fact, the immune modulators or checkpoint inhibitors have shown great results in treating liver cancer. Nivolumab, a checkpoint inhibitor has been approved to treat patients who have been treated previously for liver cancer. Although these treatments help in enhancing the immune system to fight against cancer, they may not be viable for patients suffering from hepatitis infection. In such cases, the patient’s functioning liver cells are often damaged.
Although through liver cancer research, scientists have been able to find new ways to treat liver cancer. They still believe that certain vaccinations and treatments for hepatitis can prevent around half of the liver cancer cases across the world. To achieve this, researchers are looking for ways to prevent and treat hepatitis before it leads to liver cancer. Apart from developing a vaccine for hepatitis C, research on treating chronic hepatitis is ongoing.
Additionally, doctors are studying methods to help shrink cancer cells before surgery. Therapies such as embolization, targeted therapy, ablation, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy have been tried on patients (small numbers) before their surgery and have shown promising results.
Liver cancer research is an ongoing process, but hopefully, the scientists will come up with a strong vaccine to prevent the disease in the near future.