Adoptive Cell Therapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Biological Rationale and First Results in Early Phase Clinical Trials

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The mortality of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is quickly increasing worldwide. Immunotherapy enables the immune defense of the organism to target liver cancer cells. Recent technologies enable engineering of immune cells, and notably T lymphocytes, to make them more efficient against the tumor. These technics (called TCR engineered T cells and CAR-T cells) are promising and are actually tested in clinical trials. This review explains the concept of TCR modified and CAR-T cells in liver cancer (targets and mechanisms of action) and reports the results from recent clinical trials. ABSTRACT: The mortality of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is quickly increasing worldwide. In unresectable HCC, the cornerstone of systemic treatments is switching from tyrosine kinase inhibitors to immune checkpoints inhibitors (ICI). Next to ICI, adoptive cell transfer represents another promising field of immunotherapy. Targeting tumor associated antigens such as alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), glypican-3 (GPC3), or New York esophageal squamous cell carcinoma-1 (NY-ESO-1), T cell receptor (TCR) engineered T cells and chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) engineered T cells are emerging as potentially effective therapies, with objective responses reported in early phase trials. In this review, we address the biological rationale of TCR/CAR engineered T cells in advanced HCC, their mechanisms of action, and results from recent clinical trials.