Liver cancer is one of the malignant tumors with high incidence and extremely poor prognosis in China. Current treatments such as surgery

radiotherapy

and chemotherapy have been proved to be limited effects. It is very necessary to develop new therapeutic methods. Immunotherapy is one of the potentially effective treatments. Programmed cell death receptor-1 (PD-1) is an important immune checkpoint

which is mainly expressed on activated T lymphocytes

B lymphocytes and NK cells

and has an immunosuppressive effect. Multiple tumors highly express programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1)

and PD-L1 binds to PD-1 on the surface of T cells and other cells

exerting negative immune regulation

leading to inactivation of T lymphocytes and thus tumor immune escape. A couple of studies have found that blockage of PD-1 can rebuild the immune surveillance function of T lymphocytes and prolong the overall survival of patients with liver cancer and other tumors. In this article

we have reviewed the advances of PD-1 targeted therapy for liver cancer. The key issue that needs to be solved is how to maximize the response rate of antibodies against immune checkpoints and meanwhile reduce the incidence of immune-related adverse events through combination therapy and other methods.