Table 1.

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors under phase II/III clinical studies for HCC treatment [4].

Drug	Targets	Descriptions	Reference
Cediranib	VEGFR	Shows high toxicity and is ineffective for patients with unresectable or metastatic HCC	[30]
Dovitinib	c-KIT, Flt-3, FGFR, VEGFR	Significantly prolongs survival and inhibits primary tumour growth and lung metastasis in HCC xenograft models	[31,32]
Erlotinib	EGFR	Shows modest prolonged progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with unresectable HCC	[33,34]
Gefitinib	EGFR	Inhibits the tumor growth of HCC xenografts in a mouse model	[35]
Selumetinib	MEK1	Suppresses tumour growth of HCC xenografts in mouse model Shows inadequate antitumour activity with short progression-free survival in patients with locally advanced or metastatic HCC	[36,37]
Brivanib	FGFR, VEGFR	Increases apoptosis, reduces microvessel density, and decreases VEGFR phosphorylation Shows promising antitumour activity in patients with advanced HCC	[28,29]
Linifanib	PDGFR, VEGFR	Inhibits tumour growth of HCC xenografts in the mouse model Shows similar overall survival to sorafenib in patients with advanced HCC	[38,39,40]
Sunitinib	c-Kit, Flt-3, PDGFP, VEGFR	Increases apoptosis and reduces microvessel density of HCC xenografts Displays poor overall survival in patients with advanced HCC and has severe toxicity	[41]
Orantinib	FGFR, PDGFR, VEGFR	Suppresses the tumour growth of subcutaneously co-injected HCC cell line xenografts Shows no improvement in overall survival in patients with unresectable HCC	[42,43]
Bevacizumab	VEGF	Inhibits tumour growth of HCC cell lines or patient-derived HCC xenografts	[44,45]
Cetuximab	EGFR	Shows no obvious response in patients with advanced HCC	[46]

VEGF: Vascular endothelial growth factor; VEGFR: Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor; FGFR: Fibroblast growth factor receptor; EGFR: Epidermal growth factor receptor; MEK1: Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase; PDGFR: Platelet-derived growth factor receptor; Flt-3: FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3.