Dendritic-Cell-Vaccine-Based Immunotherapy for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Clinical Trials and Recent Preclinical Studies

SIMPLE SUMMARY: This review summarizes the evidence from clinical trials and recent preclinical studies regarding the evaluation and optimization of dendritic cells (DCs)-based vaccines as either mono- or combination immunotherapy with current anticancer therapies and/or various immune effector cells for treating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). ABSTRACT: Although many surgical and nonsurgical therapeutic options have been well-established, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains the third most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Therefore, the discovery of novel potential therapeutic strategies is still urgently required for improving survival and prognosis of HCC patients. As the most potent antigen-presenting cells in the human immune system, dendritic cells (DCs) play an important role in activating not only innate but also adaptive immune responses to specifically destroy tumor cells. As a result, DC-based vaccines, which are prepared by different tumor-antigen-pulsing strategies or maturation-stimulating reagents, either alone or in combination with various anticancer therapies and/or immune effector cells, have been developed as a promising personalized cancer immunotherapy. This review provides a comprehensive summary of the evidence from clinical trials evaluating the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of DC-based vaccines in treating HCC patients and highlights the data from recent preclinical studies regarding the development of promising strategies for optimizing the efficacy of DC-vaccine-based immunotherapy for HCC.