Successful Treatment of Disseminated Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Liver Transplantation With Nivolumab

Waseem Amjad; Sandy Kotiah; Ankur Gupta; Michael Morris; Li Liu; Paul J Thuluvath

doi:10.1016/j.jceh.2019.11.009

Successful Treatment of Disseminated Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Liver Transplantation With Nivolumab

J Clin Exp Hepatol. 2020 Mar-Apr;10(2):185-187. doi: 10.1016/j.jceh.2019.11.009. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

Authors

Waseem Amjad¹, Sandy Kotiah², Ankur Gupta³, Michael Morris³, Li Liu⁴, Paul J Thuluvath^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Digestive Health & Liver Disease, Mercy, Medical Center, Baltimore MD 21202, USA.
² Departments of Oncology, Mercy, Medical Center, Baltimore MD 21202, USA.
³ Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Mercy, Medical Center, Baltimore MD 21202, USA.
⁴ Pathology, Mercy, Medical Center, Baltimore MD 21202, USA.
⁵ University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21202, USA.

Abstract

The use of immunotherapy in transplant recipients is considered a contraindication because of very high risks for graft loss. The graft loss is to be expected because cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 and programmed death 1 pathways are implicated in graft tolerance. In this case report, we describe a woman with recurrent, disseminated hepatocellular carcinoma who was successfully treated with nivolumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Keywords: CPI, immune checkpoint inhibitor; HCC, Hepatocellular carcinoma; PD- L1, programmed death -ligand 1; PD-1, programmed death -1; immune checkpoint inhibitor; post liver transplant; recurrent HCC.