Key clinical point: Tumor vaccines are effective and safe in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Major finding: Tumor vaccines effectuated a pooled objective response rate, median overall survival, and median progression-free survival of 7% (95% CI 3%-14%), 13.7 (95% CI 8.2-22.8) months, and 6.2 (95% CI 3.0-12.9) months, respectively. The pooled rate of severe adverse events (AE; grades 3-5) was only 7.9%, and the most prevalent AE was grade 1-2 injection site reaction.
Study details: This was a meta-analysis of 35 cohorts in 31 studies (published between 2001 and 2021) that included 932 patients with HCC who received tumor vaccines.
Disclosures: The study was supported by the Taishan Scholars Program for Young Expert of Shandong Province and National Natural Science Foundation of China, among others. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Han CL et al. Efficacy and security of tumor vaccines for hepatocellular carcinoma: A systemic review and meta-analysis of the last 2 decades. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2022 (Apr 28). Doi: 10.1007/s00432-022-04008-y