Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), together with metabolic syndrome and obesity, has shown a rapid increase in prevalence worldwide and is emerging as a major cause of chronic liver disease and liver transplantation. Among the various phenotypes of NAFLD, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is highly likely to progress to development of end-stage liver disease and cardiometabolic disease, resulting in liver-related and non-liver-related mortality. Nonetheless, there is no standardized pharmacotherapy against NASH and many drugs are under development in ongoing clinical trials. To develop a successful anti-NASH drug, it is necessary to select an appropriate target population and treatment outcomes depending on whether the mode of action is anti-metabolic, anti-inflammatory or anti-fibrotic. Recently, innovative surrogate markers have been investigated to replace hard outcomes such as liver histology and mortality and reduce the clinical trial duration. Currently, several drugs with fast track designation are being tested in phase III clinical trials, and many other drugs have moved into phase II clinical trials. Both lean NAFLD and typical obese NAFLD have been extensively studied and genetic variants such as PNPLA3 and TM6SF2 have been identified as significant risk factors for lean NAFLD. In the near future, noninvasive biomarkers and effective targeted therapies for NASH and associated fibrosis are required to develop precision medicine and tailored therapy according to various phenotypes of NAFLD.

Twenty-four-week oltipraz treatment significantly reduced the liver fat content in patients with NAFLD. Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01373554).

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252 Background: Resminostat is an oral hydroxamate-type inhibitor of class I, IIB, and IV histone deacetylases. A European Phase II study of second-line combination therapy with resminostat and sorafenib for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients (pts) revealed a promising improvement in overall survival (OS). Here we report the findings on safety and efficacy of an Asian Phase I/II study on first-line combination therapy with sorafenib and resminostat in HCC pts. Methods: Pts with advanced or metastatic HCC considered Child-Pugh A and ECOG 0/1 were enrolled in Japan and Korea. Sorafenib was administered at 400 mg (bid) in both Phase I and II. Resminostat was administered on days 1 to 5 every 14 days. In Phase I, the dose of resminostat was escalated from 400 mg/day (DL1) to 600 mg/day (DL2). In Phase II, pts were randomly assigned to sorafenib monotherapy or sorafenib/resminostat combination therapy at a ratio of 1:1. The primary endpoint was time to progression (TTP). Tumor response was assessed according to RECIST version 1.1 every 6 weeks. Results: A total of 9 pts were enrolled in Phase I (DL1, 3 pts; DL2, 6 pts). Higher incidences of G3-4 toxicities, including one DLT (G4 thrombocytopenia), were observed at DL2. Therefore, DL1 was determined as the recommended dose for Phase II. A total of 170 pts were enrolled in Phase II. The median TTP was 2.8 months in the combination and control arm, respectively (HR: 0.984). No significant difference was observed in the median OS. Retrospective analysis revealed favorable results for the combination option in certain subgroups: for example, HBV+ (TTP: HR, 0.630; OS: HR, 0.846); no prior therapy (TTP: HR, 0.629; OS: HR, 0.590); and platelet count > = 151.000 (TTP: HR, 0.646; OS: HR, 0.509). Conclusions: Although the primary endpoint was not reached in this Phase II all-comer HCC study, the results of the subgroup analysis suggest a population-specific effect for the combination therapy, especially in one which is HBV+. This warrants the further development of this combination as first-line therapy in a well-defined subset of pts with advanced HCC. Clinical trial information: NCT02400788.

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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 × 10 9 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. Keywords Hepatocellular carcinoma • Cytokine-induced killer cell • Adjuvant immunotherapy • Recurrence-free survival • Overall survival Abbreviations AFP Alpha-fetoprotein AJCC American Joint Committee on Cancer CI Confidence interval CIK Cytokine-induced killer CSS Cancer-specific survival HBV Hepatitis B virus HCC Hepatocellular carcinoma HCV Hepatitis C virus HR Hazard ratio The results of the present extended follow-up study were previously presented as an oral presentation at the European Association of the Study of the Liver (EASL) International Liver Congress (ILC) 2018, France, Paris, April 11-15, 2018 [1]. The details of the original clinical trial were reported before in 2015 in an article in "Gastroenterology" titled "Adjuvant Immunotherapy with Autologous Cytokine-Induced Killer Cells for Hepatocellular Carcinoma" [2].

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