BACKGROUND: The clinical significance of programmed cell death protein-1 
(PD-1)-targeted immunotherapy in Chinese patients is understudied. We thus aimed 
to evaluate the safety and efficacy of PD-1 inhibitors with toripalimab, 
camrelizumab or sintilimab for Chinese hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients 
in a real-life cohort.
METHODS: We analysed hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated HCC patients treated 
with toripalimab, camrelizumab, or sintilimab in a retrospective single-center 
cohort from November 2018 to June 2020. Efficacy was evaluated with objective 
response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival 
(PFS), time to tumor progression (TTP), and overall survival (OS). Safety data 
were also recorded.
RESULTS: Seventy patients were finally included in the analysis: 23 were treated 
with toripalimab, 33 with camrelizumab, and 14 with sintilimab. The mean 
duration of follow-up was 44.7 (95% CI: 39.9-49.6) weeks and the mean cycles of 
PD-1 at cutoff were 8.3±8.0 for all patients. The ORR and DCR for the whole 
cohort were 30% and 72.9%, respectively. Overall, 25 (35.7%) patients had 
radiological disease progression and 10 (14.3%) patients died during follow-up. 
Median PFS, median TTP, and median OS had not yet been reached. Most frequent 
drug-related adverse events (AEs) were rash (27.1%), hypertension (18.6%), 
fatigue (17.1%), diarrhea (17.1%), paresthesia (15.7%), and nausea (15.7%).
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that (I) PD-1 targeted immunotherapy with 
toripalimab, camrelizumab, or sintilimab yielded a promising outcome in Chinese 
HBV patients with HCC and that (II) immunotherapy was well tolerated generally 
and had manageable side effects. This approach thus warrants further 
popularization and application in clinical practice.