Fig. 1

Icaritin induces anti-cancer activities in advanced HCC patients. a. Plot view of overall survival (OS) of all enrolled 20 (15 were evaluable) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Patients with star (*) indicate the second line treatment and with baseline refractory progression status after sorafenib or chemo-treatment. b. Icaritin treatment outcome was associated with the dynamic changes of circulating immune cells in advanced HCC patients. Icaritin treatment induced changes of neutrophil percentage were normalized with baseline as 100% (B1, green lines show stable disease (SD) patients with transient decreases in neutrophils). Icaritin treatment induced changes of neutrophil from baseline to D8 were significantly associated with time-to-progression (TTP) (p = 0.0067, B2). Dynamic changes of lymphocyte percentage were normalized to baseline as 100% (B3, green lines show SD patients with transient increases in lymphocytes after icaritin treatment). Icaritin treatment induced lymphocyte changes from baseline to D8 were significantly associated with TTP (p = 0.0337, B4). c. Baseline levels of inflammation and immune cell indices including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR, C1), inflammation-immune index (SII, C2), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR, C3) and AFP (C4), were associated with OS in HCC. Median values were used as cut-off for survival estimation per the Kaplan-Meier analysis