“…Although thermal ablation (TA) with a great advantage of minimal invasiveness has been widely used for HCC treatment nowadays, most HCC patients eventually die of tumor metastasis and recurrence after ablation [ [3] , [4] , [5] ]. It is well known that thermal ablation can lead to the release of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) activating antitumor immunological responses, with which the immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) starts to unleash the brake of T cell response for tumor cell killing [ [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] ]. Hence, the combination of thermal ablation and ICB therapy may be a promising strategy for HCC treatment [ 11 , 12 ].…”