Transarterial oily chemoembolization (TOCE) is one of the most effective approaches for the treatment of patients with
hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), who are not suitable for surgical
therapy.
Lidamycin (LDM), a potent antitumor
antibiotic, demonstrates good antitumor efficacy in various
tumor types, both in vitro and in vivo. In this study, the antitumor efficacy of LDM combined with TOCE against the rabbit VX2
tumor was assessed. A toxicity assay with
3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) demonstrated that a combination of LDM with
lipiodol did not impair the cytotoxicity of LDM against HepG2 cells in vitro. Using TOCE in rabbit VX2
tumor models, LDM showed a more powerful inhibitory effect against the
tumor and lowered the expression levels of
proliferating cell nuclear antigen (
PCNA), cluster of differentiation 31 (CD31), and
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF) compared to
Adriamycin (ADM); moreover, this improvement was not accompanied by an increase of hepatotoxicity as shown by
alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and
aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels. These results suggested that LDM combined with TOCE may be a feasible strategy in HCC
therapy in the future.