Our earlier multicenter randomized controlled trial showed that adjuvant immunotherapy with cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells resulted in longer recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) as well in patients who received curative treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, we determined if the efficacy of CIK cell therapy continued after end of repeated CIK cell injections. We performed a follow-up study of our preceding trial. We included 226 patients: 114 patients in the immunotherapy group (injection of 6.4 × 10⁹ CIK cells, 16 times during 60 weeks) and 112 patients in the control group (no treatment) after potentially curative treatment for HCC. In total, 162 patients (89 of the immunotherapy group and 73 of controls) underwent an extended follow-up for 60 months after randomization of the last patient. The primary endpoint was RFS, and secondary endpoints included OS. During follow-up time of median 68.5 months (interquartile range 45.0–82.2 months), the immunotherapy group continued to show a significantly lower risk of recurrence or death [hazard ratio (HR) 0.67; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.48–0.94; P = 0.009 by one-sided log-rank test]. At 5 years, RFS rate was 44.8% in the immunotherapy group and 33.1% in the control group. The risk of all-cause death was also lower in the immunotherapy group compared to the control group (HR 0.33; 95% CI 0.15–0.76; P = 0.006). In patients who received curative treatment for HCC, the significant improvement in RFS and OS as a result of adjuvant CIK cell immunotherapy lasted over 5 years without boosting.

Gastric cancers have poor overall survival despite recent advancements in early detection methods, endoscopic resection techniques, and chemotherapy treatments. Vaccinia viral therapy has had promising therapeutic potential for various cancers and has a great safety profile. We investigated the therapeutic efficacy of a novel genetically-engineered vaccinia virus carrying the human sodium iodide symporter (hNIS) gene, GLV-1 h153, on gastric cancers and its potential utility for imaging with 99mTc pertechnetate scintigraphy and 124I positron emission tomography (PET).

Many studies which focus on the molecules and mechanisms related to the characteristics of the cancer have been performed. In particular, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) are known to play a central role in the adhesion of cancer cells to vascular endothelial cells. In this study, the expression of CAMs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines was analyzed and correlated with the characteristics of various HCC cell lines. Eight human HCC cell lines were used in this study. We analyzed the expression of ICAM-1, E-selectin and the integrin subunits of HCC cell lines by western blot analysis and ELISA kit. We estimated the expression of integrin-α5 using western blot analysis and RT-PCR to compare the expression at the gene level with the protein level. In addition, we determined the expression of TGF-β1, as one of the markers for the cellular activity compared to the levels of expression with the expression of integrin-α3 and -α5. ICAM-1 was highly expressed in all of the cell lines except SNU398 and Hep3B, which exhibit a more aggressive nature among the studied HCC cell lines. E-selectin and integrin subunits varied in all HCC cell lines. In particular, integrin-β2 was highly expressed on all HCC cell lines. In conclusion, the levels of expression of the CAMs may not affect cellular activity, morphology or tumorigenicity. However, most HCC cell lines show various expressions of CAMs, suggesting that HCC cell lines expressing the major CAMs remain candidates for molecular targeted therapy, which may need to be patient-tailored for therapy according to the molecular profile.