Transarterial viroembolization improves the therapeutic efficacy of immune-excluded liver cancer: Three birds with one stone

• DOI: 10.1016/j.phrs.2022.106581
• Publication Date: 2022-11-25T13:40:14Z
• Authors: Yanyan Cao; Fu Xiong; Xuefeng Kan; Xiaopeng Guo; Tao Ouyang; Runyang Wang; Junhan Yang; Linkang Cai; Binlei Liu; Bin Liang; Chuansheng Zheng
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; Liver Neoplasms; Animals; Rabbits; Embolization, Therapeutic; 3. Good health

To investigate the mechanism and efficacy of transarterial viroembolization (TAVE) with an oncolytic virus (OH2) for the treatment of liver cancer in rabbit VX2 tumor models.Subcutaneous tumor and liver cancer models were established to determine the optimal viral titer and administration modality of OH2. Different liver cancer models were established to evaluate the locoregional tumor response, synergistic and standby effects, survival benefit, and specific antitumor immune memory after TAVE treatment. The immune cell densities in tumor tissues were measured.The optimal viral titer of OH2 was 1 × 107 CCID50. TAVE was the most effective modality with greater homogeneous OH2 distribution and therapeutic efficacy compared to other administration routes of transarterial virus infusion (TAVI), commonly adopted intratumor injection (TI), and intravenous injection (IV). Additionally, TAVE treatment significantly improved the locoregional tumor response, standby effect, and survival benefit compared to the TAVI, transarterial embolization (TAE), and control groups. TAVE modified the immune cell densities for immune-excluded liver cancer, partially destroyed vessel metastases, and established antitumor immune memory. The synergistic treatment efficacy of TAVE was superior to the simple addition of two independent monotherapies.TAVE was the optimal and a safe modality for treating immune-excluded liver cancer, and its synergistic effect achieved a remarkable tumor response, standby effect, survival benefit, and antitumor immune memory, which providing an innovative therapeutic modality for clinical practice.Data is available from the corresponding author upon requirement.