What are the drugs for treating liver cancer

Treatments for liver cancer are divided into two categories: surgical and non-surgical. Surgical treatments include liver resection and liver transplantation. Non-surgical treatments include radiotherapy and chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy, traditional Chinese medicine, biological therapy, and so on. Each method has its own characteristics and efficacy. Comprehensive therapy is not the superposition of various methods, but is specifically allocated according to each different patient. Current medical research has found that targeted drugs are still very effective in the treatment of liver cancer, which is also a development in biotechnology. Targeted drugs can target cancer cells and directly inhibit or kill cancer cells. There are also many targeted drugs for liver cancer, including sorafenib, bevacizumab, etc.

1. Sorafenib

Sorafenib is the first targeted drug used in the treatment of liver cancer. Sorafenib is a small molecule multi-target biological targeted therapy new drug. The survival, growth and metastasis of tumors depend on tumor cell proliferation and tumor angiogenesis. Sorafenib can directly inhibit tumor cell proliferation by inhibiting the RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK signal transduction pathway. On the other hand, it can inhibit the activity of several tyrosine kinase receptors related to angiogenesis and tumor development, including vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2, platelet-derived growth factor receptor, etc., to block tumor angiogenesis, indirectly inhibiting the growth of tumor cells, thereby playing an anti-tumor role. Liver cancer is the most solid vascular tumor with high expression of VEGF, so the effect of sorafenib in inhibiting angiogenesis may be more significant for liver cancer.

2. Sunitinib

Sunitinib. Sunitinib is a multi-target tyrosine kinase receptor small molecule inhibitor, including PDGF-α, PDGF-β, VEGFR-1, VEG-FR-2, VEGFR-3, KIT, FLT-3, colony stimulating factor receptor type 1 (CSF-1R) and RET. It inhibits tumor cell division and growth by interfering with signal transduction.

3. Erlotinib

It is an oral small molecule EGFR inhibitor that targets the tyrosine kinase region. It is not widely used for liver cancer.

4. Cetuximab

It is a monoclonal antibody that targets EGFR. Like bevacizumab, it has become an important part of the standard treatment for many patients with advanced, wild-type colorectal cancer. Unlike erlotinib, there is still a lack of strong evidence to prove its effectiveness in the treatment of liver cancer.

5. Everolimus

It is another inhibitor of mTOR and has been shown to be effective in liver cancer xenografts. Studies have shown that the early results of everolimus combined with sorafenib in the treatment of HCC are satisfactory.