Research progress on immune escape mechanism and targeted intervention of circulating tumor cells in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract:

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide. As a typical immunogenic tumor, HCC has a complex immune microenvironment that plays a crucial role in its initiation and progression. In recent years, the interactive network between immunosuppressive cells and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has drawn increasing attention for its role in promoting HCC immune evasion and metastasis. However, how CTCs escape immune surveillance and clearance by immune cells remains unclear. This article focuses on the regulatory networks between CTCs and immunosuppressive cells as well as the key pathways of immune evasion, introduces exosome-mediated regulation and single-cell multi-omics technologies to dissect mechanisms of cellular interactions, systematically discusses the clinical translational challenges of targeting pathways such as PD-L1 and CCL5, and proposes future prospects for personalized therapy driven by artificial intelligence.