To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of TP21 injection for TACE in treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma:

1. Primary efficacy endpoint: progression-free survival (PFS), which will be assessed by the Independent Review Committee according to the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (mRECIST).
2. Secondary efficacy endpoints: PFS, objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), overall survival (OS), time to progression (TTP), 1-year progression-free survival, 1-year survival and 2-year survival assessed by the investigator.

TP21 injection is a supramolecular compound that has completed early pharmacological and toxicological preclinical studies, as well as phase I and II clinical studies. Data from previous studies showed that TP21 injection has significant advantages over traditional platinum-based drugs in terms of broad spectrum, low toxicity, high efficacy and low drug resistance etc. The results of the Phase II TACE clinical exploratory study in hepatocellular carcinoma showed a trend for TP21 alone to be significantly better than epirubicin alone, and due to the small sample size, the available data were insufficient to demonstrate obvious advantage of this drug. Now, a confirmatory phase III clinical study of TACE for hepatocellular carcinoma is needed, which may continue to adopt the main design of the phase II clinical trial, in a single agent comparison form: all the subjects will be randomized 1:1 into TP21+lipiodol group (trial group), and epirubicin hydrochloride+lipiodol group (control group) to receive TACE treatment of either "TP21+lipiodol" or "epirubicin hydrochloride+lipiodol". TACE treatment should be carried out for no more than 3 times in half a year to no more than 5 times within 1 year, and about 332 subjects will be enrolled, 166 for the trial group and the control group each.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. age 18 years or older, and life expectancy ≥ 3 months;
2. histopathologically or clinically confirmed HCC;
3. Child-Pugh class A or B liver function (≤7 level), Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (PS) score of 0, 1 or 2；
4. China Liver Cancer stage IIb, IIIa (only Cheng's classification type I:portal vein tumor thrombus invading the portal vein branches of the liver lobe or liver segment) , and Ib, 2a patients who can be surgically removed, but are unable or unwilling to undergo surgery due to other reasons (such as advanced age, severe liver cirrhosis, etc.);
5. at least one lesion measurable by modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors for HCC (mRECIST);
6. no history of TACE or tumor recurrence after curative-intent therapy (i.e., surgical resection or ablation);
7. No blood transfusion and blood products, no use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (GCSF) and other hematopoietic stimulating factors within 2 weeks before screening; Hemoglobin ≥ 80g/L；Platelet count ≥ 60×10^9 /L; White blood cell count ≥ 3×10^9/L; Alanine aminotransferase ≤ 3 times the upper limit of normal; Aspartate aminotransferase ≤ 3×times the upper limit of normal; Serum creatinine Cr ≤ 1.5×times the upper limit of normal;

Exclusion Criteria:

1. allergic to platinum or iodine products or epirubicin and related excipients;
2. diffuse HCC (whole liver tumor burden ≥ 70%),and the hepatocellular carcinoma is hypovascular;
3. first-order branches and distant of the portal vein tumor thrombus;
4. Liver function classification is Child Pugh C;
5. Invasion of left and right hepatic duct, common hepatic duct, cystic duct and common bile duct;
6. The tumor has severe arteriovenous shunt, which the investigator judges may affect the efficacy of TACE; or there is extrahepatic metastasis;
7. Patients with other tumors, except for thyroid tumors and skin carcinoma in situ that have been cured, early cervical cancer;
8. Have a history of gastrointestinal bleeding or a marked tendency to gastrointestinal bleeding within 6 months before randomization;
9. Uncorrectable abnormal coagulation function or bleeding tendency;
10. received other antitumor therapies within the past 4 weeks (e.g., chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy,Chinese medicine with antitumor effect), or received the above anti-tumor drugs within 5 half-lives;
11. received immunotherapy, targeted therapy or radiotherapy for intrahepatic tumors
12. have received an organ transplant

the independent review committee (IRC) was used to evaluate the efficacy, and the readers reviewed the imaging data in a blinded state to make efficacy judgments. The following information was blinded to independent readers: subject's name, date of birth, personal information such as subject's initials, date of examination, statistical grouping, name of study unit, lesion selected by study unit for tumor evaluation, study Unit-determined tumor response and imaging reasons.