In attempts to delay tumor progression after surgery or minimally invasive local treatments, multidisciplinary strategies have been broadly studied in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The objective of this present study was to evaluate the efficacy of autologous transplantations of cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells as an adjuvant therapy for patients with HCC. A total of 264 patients with HCC were enrolled in this retrospective study. Of these patients, 165 received either CIK cell therapy alone or as adjuvant therapy to surgery, transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), or TACE-based comprehensive treatments (CT). The remaining 99 patients received only surgery or TACE. Kaplan-Meier analysis and the Chi-squared test were used to analyze the overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and clinical characteristics of the patients in the different treatment subgroups. Kaplan-Meier analysis suggested that patients in the Surgery+CIK group had a significantly improved OS compared with those in the other three groups (P < 0.001). Furthermore, patients who developed a fever after the CIK cell treatments manifested a likely better OS (P = 0.028). Subgroup analysis indicated that patients in the Surgery+CIK group likely had an improved PFS but a similar OS compared with the patients in the Surgery-alone group (P = 0.055 for PFS, and P = 0.746 for OS). Further subgroup analysis showed that the OS in both the TACE+CIK and CT+CIK groups was prolonged significantly compared with that in the TACE-alone group (P = 0.015 and P = 0.018, respectively). However, similar OS was observed between the TACE+CIK and CT+CIK groups (P = 0.686). Autologous transplantation of CIK cells as an adjuvant therapy was associated with better survival for patients with HCC, especially for those who had also undergone TACE. A fever reaction might be a potential event for assessing the curative effect of the CIK treatment.
Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; cytokine-induced killer cell; immunotherapy; prognosis; transcatheter arterial chemoembolization.