New hope for liver cancer patients
發佈日期: 2025-06-16 20:08
TVB News
The University of Hong Kong's medical school has developed a dual immunotherapy treatment for liver cancer patients. The new treatment increases the patients' chance of survival and reduces disease progression.
The therapy was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April this year.
Mr. Lee is a liver cancer patient who has received dual immunotherapy through a clinical trial by the University of Hong Kong's Clinical Medical School.
The treatment uses a drug combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, or NIVO and IPI, which are immune checkpoint inhibitors that help the immune system recognise and attack cancer cells.
After a two-year treatment, Lee said his tumour is under control.
Often, liver cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage, leaving limited treatment options for patients because of factors such as drug resistance.
To assess whether the combination of NIVO and IPI would outperform conventional treatment, such as targeted therapy, HKUMed launched a phase three clinical trial between 2020 and 2021.
Medical experts found that patients treated with NIVO and IPI had a median survival period of 23.7 months, compared to 20.6 for those receiving traditional treatment.
The new therapy led to a 36 percent response rate in shrinking or eliminating tumours, whereas the same figure was 13 percent for the traditional methods.
What about side effects of the new therapy?
Thomas Yau, Clinical Associate Professor at HKUMed, said: "If you have toxicity, the most common treatment related toxicity is first, skin rash. Second, transient liver function derangement. Third is the thyroid function disorder. If you compare the instance of the treatment-related toxicity associated with the dual immunotherapy to detected therapy, actually, the overall side-effects are quite similar."
While dual immunotherapy has not yet been approved in Hong Kong, the research team said a pharmaceutical factory has already applied for approval from the Centre for Health Protection.
