Novel adjuvant dendritic cell therapy with transfection of heat-shock protein 70 messenger RNA for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: a phase I/II prospective randomized controlled clinical trial.

Introduction: A proteomic analysis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has revealed that Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP70) is among the cancer antigen proteins of HCC. Moreover, we confirmed that HSP70 was highly expressed in HCC by immunohistochemical staining. Based on these results, we developed an HSP70 mRNA-transfected dendritic cell (DC) therapy for treating unresectable or recurrent HCC, and the phase I trial was completed successfully.