Cytokine-induced killer cell infusion combined with conventional treatments produced better prognosis for hepatocellular carcinoma patients with barcelona clinic liver cancer B or earlier stage: A systematic review and meta-analysis

•A systematic review focused on RCTs published between 2000 and 2015.•CIK infusion plus conventional therapies produced a better prognosis.•Hepatocellular carcinoma patients with BCLC B or earlier stage were targets.

Background aimsTo investigate the clinical benefits of cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cell infusions on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, combined with other conventional treatments.MethodsThis was a systematic review and meta-analysis conducted among phase II and III randomized control trials worldwide. Review manager 5.2 version was used to pool the effect size across studies. Sensitivity analyses and risk of bias were estimated among included studies. Egger's test was used to characterize the publication bias.ResultsEight randomized controlled trials and 945 patients with HCC were included in the study. CIK infusion reduced cancer recurrence risk to 0.74 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.5-0.92), I2 75% (P <0.001), and reduced cancer death risk to 0.76 (95% CI 0.65-0.88), I2 50% (P = 0.09). Among studies blinded for outcome assessment and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stages of 0, A and B, CIK infusion reduced recurrence risk by 18% (relative risk [RR] = 0.82, 95% CI 0.70-0.96) and death risk by 37% (RR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.47-0.85); heterogeneity was 0% and 39%, respectively (P > 0.05). The intercepts of linear regressions for recurrence and death were −2.17 and −2.07, respectively, but the P value was 0.17 and 0.38; no significant publication bias was observed with Egger's test.DiscussionAmong hepatocellular carcinoma patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer score of B or less, CIK cell infusions combined with conventional treatments significantly prolonged recurrence-free and overall survival. This adoptive immunotherapy could be recommended to HCC patients.