An overview of loco-regional treatments in patients and mouse models for hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a highly aggressive malignancy and is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Although surgery is currently considered the most effective curative treatment for this type of cancer, it is note that most of patients have a poor prognosis due to chemioresistence and tumor recurrence. Loco-regional therapies, including radiofrequency ablation, surgical resection and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization play a major role in the clinical management of hepatocellular carcinoma. In order to improve the treatment outcome of patients diagnosed with this disease, several in vivo studies by using different techniques on cancer mouse models have been performed. This review will focus on the latest papers on the efficacy of loco-regional therapy and combined treatments in patients and mouse models of hepatocellular carcinoma.