INTRODUCTION
tumor, death, melanoma, cancer, cirrhosis, liver insufficiency, uroepithelial carcinoma, HCC, tumors, PD‐L1
TUMOR, METASTASIS, MELANOMA, CANCER, CIRRHOSIS, HEPATITIS B INFECTION, HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA, NEUROENDOCRINE TUMORS, TUMORS, TUMOR RECURRENCE
In China, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly lethal and prevalent form of cancer with a mortality and morbidity rate that is among the highest in the world. Despite surgical resection being the preferred treatment for HCC, only a small percentage of patients (approximately 20%–30%) are able to undergo this procedure due to factors such as underlying hepatitis B infection, combined cirrhosis and liver insufficiency, multicentric tumor occurrence, and early tumor spread and metastasis, which are present in over 90% of cases.Minimally invasive tumor treatment has developed remarkably during the past 20 years or so, and the guidelines for the treatment of HCC now include transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA).Although RFA has the potential to boost the anti‐tumor immune response in HCC patients, typically the resulting immune response is insufficient to prevent tumor recurrence.Targeted immunotherapy against toripalimab (anti‐PD‐1) and its ligand PD‐L1 has demonstrated effective and lasting results in treating various types of tumors. The Food and Drug Administration has approved programmed death protein 1 (PD‐1) or PD‐L1 inhibitors for several indications.Anti‐PD‐1 is a selective recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that targets PD‐1. Which binds to PD‐1 and blocks its interaction with the ligand. Clinical studies have shown that anti‐PD‐1 has an acceptable safety profile, showing promising antitumor effects in melanoma, neuroendocrine tumors, uroepithelial carcinoma, and HCC, with significant economic advantages.Hence, we conducted this prospective study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of RFA combined with an anti‐PD‐1 treatment regimen by local plus systemic and physical plus immunotherapy for recurrent HCC.